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REMINISCENCES 



CHILDHOOD AT INVERKEITHING, 



LIFE AT A LAZABETTO. 



JAMES SI MS ON, 

Editor of 
"SIM son's history of the gipsies," 
and Author of 
'contributions to natural history and papers on other subjects' 

"CHARLES WATERTON"; " THE ENGLISH UNIVERSITIES AND JOHN 

bunyan"; and "the Scottish churches and the gipsies." 



' O ! is all forgot ? 

All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence? " — Shaickpearb. 



NEW YORK: JAMES MILLER. 

EDINBURGH: MACLACHLAN & STEWART, 

LONDON : BAILLIERE, TYNDALL & CO. 

1882. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 







the library 
of congress. 

Washington! 



COPYRIGHT, 1S82, BY 

JAMES SIMSON, 



PREFACE. 



It is seldom in good taste for a person to speak of himself; on 
which account (and also because there was hardly occasion for it), 
I avoided doing it in the little I have hitherto published. The 
present Reminiscences, I trust, will prove one of the exceptions, 
for the following reasons, among others : — 1st, they refer exclusive- 
ly up to the time when I lacked three or four months of being ten 
years of age ; 2d, it is upwards of thirty years since I left Scot- 
land ; and 3d, three thousand miles separate me from the places 
alluded to: all of which circumstances, if they do not disarm un- 
generous criticism, at least satisfy me in regard to what might 
otherwise be questionable, if not offensive, even to myself. 

My connection with authorship proceeded incidentally from 
having come into possession of a MS. on the Gipsies, left by my 
father, who collected the matter of it, at the urgent request of Sir 
Walter Scott and William Blackwood, mainly between 18 17 and 
1831,* while residing at the Lazaretto; and in regard to which, 
Sir Walter Scott, in a note to Qucntin Durzvard {i'St,\), said that 
" it is to be hoped this gentleman will publish the knowledge he 
possesses on so singular a topic." And it is partly in relation to 
this work that I have prepared these Reminiscences, as alluded to 
in the Appendix. It was also with this object in view that I pub- 
lished Contributions to Natural History and Papers on Other Sub- 
jects', so that what I wrote in The Scottish Churches and the 6"z)>- 
jzVj was strictly true : — "As regards myself, I am so incidentally 
connected with authorship as not to own it, except to a very few 
personal friends ; to withhold a knowledge of it from whom would 
be almost equivalent to denying it " (p. 15). 

In the Preface to Contributions, etc., I said : — "" I would have add- 
ed to theln but for the difficulty in finding subjects (or leisure to 
develop them), that have not been treated before, or treated in 
such a way as to require to be corrected, and placed on another 
and more permanent foundation than heretofore." This remark 
does not very inaptly apply to the present publication, for the 
reminiscences of a person under ten years of age — whatever they 
might be: — cannot but be more or less interesting, provided that 
they are minute, circumstantial, and accurate; in all of which re- 



* " History of the Gipsies," p. 64. — I brought the work down to the date of publi 
cation. 



4 PREFACE. 

spects they will speak for themselves. It makes little difference if 
they are given from memory many years afterwards. 

A publication like this, so far from being common, is hardly 
conventional ; for which reason it may be objected to ; but, on the 
other hand, it may be taken as a precedent that will lead to oth- 
ers of the same kind. 

It has often been asked, At what age is a child, at least in a 
general way, responsible? As regards myself, I do not remember 
when I did not consider myself responsible ; and I have no recol- 
lection of having pleaded the " Baby Act " on any occasion. The 
development of a human being from childhood to mature age, 
hov/ever interesting, is foreign to this work, except that it may be 
said that he is only a " child of a larger growth," whose relation 
to a parent proper never ceases. Some people have little definite 
recollection of their existence while under ten years of age, and 
not much more of their boyhood. My removal from the neigh- 
bourhood of the scenes depicted had the effect of leading me to 
look back on them, and having them indelibly impressed on my 
memory. To such as remember the events of their childhood, in 
a semi-rural place, what I have told of mine will doubtless prove 
attractive ; whatever may be said of purely town-brought-up peo- 
ple, or such as, " caring for none of these things," are for the most 
part engrossed in their callings, and the amenities connected with 
their positions in life. It is astonishing how deficient many seem 
to be in the mental flexibility that enables others to look back 
and forward, and throw themselves into positions besides those 
they had been long and carefully trained to fill. 

Humanity is so uniform in the principles of its physical and 
moral and even its social nature that a description of it, in its lead- 
ing features, might serve for one age as well as another ; and 
generation has succeeded generation almost as if they had never 
been, except that latterly each has left little more than " stray no- 
tices " of its existence, that are not always reliable. In that re- 
spect, is it not possible that the descriptions of the places given 
in the Reminiscences can be preserved, where there would other- 
wise have been a blank ? 

In childhood a person is in many ways greatly indebted to oth- 
ers ; but allowing for that, it may be said that in his " contro- 
versies " with his fellow-creatures the principal means that are nec- 
essary to his ends are his tongue and fists, and his legs when things 
come to the worst : how different from the complicated relation- 
ship in which he stands in that respect to them in after-life ! 

New York, /^th January, 1882. 



REMINISCENCES 



CHILDHOOD AT INVERKEITHING 



ON the southern side of the narrow 
entrance to the inner bay or har- 
bour of Inverkeithing — commonly 
called the West Ness — stood a Lazar- 
etto, which was finally discontinued 
as a Government quarantine estab- 
lishment in the autumn of 1835, when 
it was sold to an P^dinburgh lawyer for 
;;^2oo, but burdened with an annual 
feu duty of ^20. It comprised a 
wooden and a stone building, inside of 
a stone wall probably twenty feet 
high at some parts of it, and a dwell- j 
ing-house, close to the west side, in | 
which I was born on the 4th of Janu- 
ary, 1826. 

After leaving the place in Septem- 
ber or October, 1835, I was told by 
one of the old boatmen that, before 
this establishment was erected, a ship 
laid alongside of the pier, sunk into 
the sand by stone, and served the 
purpose of a Lazaretto ; and that 
when the Lazaretto proper was built 
this stone was partly used for build- 
ing dry dykes, while the rest was 
thrown into the sea, on the east side 
of the wall mentioned ; which lat- 
ter information satisfied a curiosity 
that I always had as to the mean- 
ing of the stone being there. I was 
also told that this ship, on being taken 
to Leith, was lost on the sands a lit- 
tle to the west of Cramond island. 

The Lazaretto was three stories 
high, and was built throughout of the 
best Memel timber. It was placed 
upon a number of square stone sup- 
ports, some of which were continued 
inside of the building to the begin- 



ning of the roof, to steady the struc- 
ture. The stone used inside ap- 
peared to be of a soft and inferior 
quality, yet doubtless suitable for its 
purpose, as it was not exposed to the 
weather ; but for about three feet 
from the ground on the outside it was 
of a harder and better description. 
The building had thus an almost 
clear oi)en space under it, suffi- 
ciently high to allow a child to move 
about by slightly stooping. Its three 
floors were not solid, for between 
each plank was space sufficient to 
admit the shoe of a child, who had to 
be careful \n walking that its feet were 
not caught in the intervals. The 
sides and ends of the building were 
composed of a frame, and slats that 
opened and shut laterally; so that the 
structure could be thoroughly venti- 
lated from below and all around, and 
have its contents exposed to the air 
outside. The size of the building 
was that of the machine shop of Mr. 
Scott, erected some time after 1835, 
for I was told that its roof was the 
identical one that covered the Lazar- 
etto. 

The only use that I can recollect 
the Lazaretto being put to was to re- 
ceive a quantity of what I afterwards 
understood to be bags of rags, which 
were landed at tlie pier from lighters, 
and I believe broken up and ven- 
tilated, to lemove the contagion 
which they were supposed to con- 
tain. The stone building, back of the 
wooden one, was apparently intend- 
ed for passengers ; but it was never 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



used, within my recollection, for any 
purpose but housing the labourers ; 
and its only furniture consisted of 
the slats of three beds, built into the 
walls of the room in which they 
slept. There was a rigid quarantine 
observed. The food of the men was 
passed in through an ajjerture in the 
wall, on what looked like the half of 
a barrel cut lengthwise, with shelves, 
on which the food was placed ; and 
this on being turned on a pivot 
reached the inside, when the outside 
door was locked. Water was poured 
into a chamber attached to the large 
door, and canght from a pipe inside. 
Coals were shovelled, almost thrown, 
through a door — no. one being al- 
lowed to approach within a certain 
distance on either side. The wall 
had two doors ; a small one for pas- 
sengers, and a large one to admit 
merchandise on hand trucks, along a 
flagged way from the pier till it 
reached hoisting apparatus connect- 
ed with the building. About half a 
dozen steps led to the building itself, 
and three or four led from it to the 
stone building behind it. In the S. 
E. corner of the enclosure was a 
small, dilapidated stone building that 
apparently had been used as a tem- 
porary smithy ; and near the N. E. 
corner was a small wooden erection 
attached to the back of the superin- 
tendent's office and boatmen's watch- 
house, which were entered from the 
outside of the wall. Attached to the 
entrance to the wooden building, on 
either side of it, was a shed built 
of stone. Inside of the stone wall 
were various trees which I need not 
describe. 

At this time there were five or six 
hulks, mostly ships of the line dis- 
mantled, anchored in St. Margaret's 
Hope, a little below I-imekilns, that 
were also used for quarantine pur- 
poses. The Dartmoutli, a large- 
sized frigate, which formed part of 
the fleet conunanded by Lord Ex- 
mouth in his attack on Algiers, re- 
mained, for years afterwards, the only 
hulk. The rest disappeared under 



circumstances unknown to me, ex- 
cepting the last of them, which I re- 
member seeing, in tow of a steamer, 
passing Barnbougle Point, as I stood 
on the highest part of the garden of 
the school-teacher, in the sunmier of 
1835 ; and I could not help con- 
trasting the wonderful difference be- 
tween a large ship of war when full 
rigged and when used as a hulk. 

The Lazaretto had been practical- 
ly discontinued for some time before 
I remember it, for I recollect my 
mother saying that she had lost a 
large bag of feathers which she had 
omitted to remove out of it when the 
labourers entered it during the chol- 
era, in 1832. My father let his house 
outside, for one season, at least, to 
Mr. Elias Cathcart of Auchendraine, 
Ayrshire, for sea-bathing, and re- 
moved with his family to the house 
inside the wall. It was bis wife who 
made the pencil drawing of the place 
from a photograph of which the front- 
ispiece has been prepared. In 1835 
the trees in front of the dwelling- 
house, when viewed from the East 
Ness, covered everything but the 
chimney tops ; and the drawing hav- 
ing been made from the same place, 
it would appear that the view was 
taken about 1829. 

The first recollection of people 
must necessarily be connected with 
something outside of the daily rou- 
tine of their existence, and that pre- 
sents salient points. Thus I recol- 
lect being lifted into a large boat of 
a light, tar-like colour, that was 
hauled up to the beach at the west 
side of the pier ; and that is all I re- 
member of it. From this I conclude 
that my memory does not extend be- 
yond that. The next occasion was 
finding myself in the kitchen of the 
old farm-house — or rather row of 
one-storied houses — at the Cruicks, 
without knowing how I got there, or 
how I left it; and being gently and 
kindly shaken by a strange woman 
inside, who said, " Fat the de'il's the 
matter wi' the bairn ? " This was 
1 Nell, wife of Charlie, a stonemason. 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



I have no recollection of the build- 
ing of the new steading of the Cru- 
icks, although it was doubtless put 
up between 1830 and 1831, at the 
time I made Nell's acquaintance, 
when she had charge of the old 
steading. But I have a very dis- 
tinct remembrance of the building 
of the new dwelling-house, by seeing 
two or three masons working at the 
top of the south side of it, and two 
labourers carrying stone up to them, 
as I was with a boy while herding a 
cow a little to the east of the build- 
ing. This is all I recollect of the 
erection of the new buildings at the 
Cruicks. All of the trees were 
l)lanted within my remembrance. I 
recollect when I first went to a tailor 
at Limekilns, about four miles from 
our house, walking both ways, and 
seeing a man sitting on the floor of 
a room, with some clippings of red 
cloth lying in a corner, as if they had 
been rags. I doubtless set out and 
returned with the greatest ardour, 
for next morning I could not move 
one foot after another ; and was lifted 
and placed on a table in the middle 
of the sitting-room. I can fix my 
first certain recollection to the 20th 
of June, 1831, the day before the 
birth of the fourth boy of the family ; 
for on that day I had Jock Hadden 
carrying a small Russian mat to the 
top of a brae and pulling me down 
on it, and digging and eating earth- 
nuts. The next day the most of the 
children had the same mat a short 
distance behind our house, with a 
stoup, painted blue, with black-col- 
oured hoops, containing water, with 
a tin to drink it out of, and oatmeal 
cakes to eat. It was a beautiful 
day, and early in the afternoon we 
were told of the birth, and asked to 
go into the house and see the " little 
Irishman." 

Nell, whom I have mentioned, 
had also charge of the new Cruicks' 
steading. She was an Aberdeen 
woman, whom we all liked, although 
I could never get rid of the idea that 
her eye was constantly on me when 



on or about the premises. She had 
small and girjii?ig features, and was 
anything but good-looking ; and was 
of a nervous and fussing disposition, 
constantly indulging in such expres- 
sions as " Fat the de'il is this ? " or 
" Fat the de'il is that ? " She had 
no children. Her husband was a 
remarkably big and fat and gruff- 
looking, but peaceable man, and a 
wonderful eater. To us children he 
looked like an ogre, that could dis- 
pose of a pail of milk and a pound 
of butter, not counting eggs, at a 
meal. And the owner of the farm, 
who was a non-resident, had evi- 
dently misgivings on that head, for 
it was generally reported and be- 
lieved that he had said, "What a 
pity it was that the cholera did not 
carry off muckle Charlie ! " There 
was doubtless some truth in this ; at 
least he was of a very careful dispo- 
sition, for I heard a friend of his, af- 
ter visiting him at the farm, when he 
took up his residence on it, say, 

" 's mice might break their 

necks, but would not burst them- 
selves." It was also said that the 
size of some of the windows of liis 
house arose from his having bought 
the sashes at a bargain, and built to 
suit them. 

The farm-house mentioned stood 
about a third of a mile from the 
Lazaretto, which was built on ground 
cultivated by a farmer resident in In- 
verkeithing, there being no buildings 
on it. About half the land was ara- 
ble and the rest not broken up. 

It would seem that employment 
under the Government creates not 
only a class, but almost a caste in a 
small community. As children we 
all felt that there was a distinction of 
some kind, although we could not 
understand the cause or meaning of 
it. It being the quarantine station, 
distant about a mile from a commu- 
nity of about 1,700 people, and our 
father being the superintendent, and 
what may be generally described as 
a thoroughly respectable character, 
the people treated us all with not 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



only courtesy, but kindness. On that 
head I never had occasion to feel 
otherwise than pleased. If I had 
any trouble, it proceeded either from 
some fault of my own or from what 
will affect children under almost any 
circumstances. With the exception 
of two families, the heads of which 
were employed at the station, we 
were the only residents on the 
ground on part of which, or near 
which, the Lazaretto stood ; and, al- 
though we had no right to order any 
one off, we felt (unreasonably, per- 
haps,) that people had no business 
there, excepting those that cultivated 
the ground or came to visit us. We 
could not order them off, but we 
made it very manifest that they were 
not wanted there, especially boys or 
half-grown lads. Thus my father 
would make as though he was watch- 
ing them, and disappear and then 
appear, which had an ominous 
meaning, and generally served the 
purpose in view. One Sunday, j 
rather earl}', there aj^ipeared about 
half a dozen of what looked like 
young men, one of whom I knew ; , 
and my father cast a peculiar glance 
at them, which I instantly appre- 
ciated, for I joined in the crowd 
till I saw them beyond the 
boundary. On one occasion I 
and my sister next older tlian me 
saw a strange boy with the farmer's 
herd, and we went to see who he 
was. His head was bare and had so 
j^eculiar an appearance that we, 
Scotch - like, instantly dubbed him 
" Tappie - tourie " ; and I had to 
stand between him and my sister to 
preserve the peace, for she looked 
as if she would instantly Hy at him. 
However, the herd's acquaintances 
were always privileged when we as- 
certained that they were really such. 
An old man, poorly dressed and 
very miserable-looking, once caused 
us no little fear. He hung around 
the place daily for nearly a week, 
with no apparent means of feeding 
or sleeping ; and it was the daily 
enquiry of my father on coming 



home, about four o'clock, if " the 
old fellow had left." No concern 
was felt at night, but only during the 
day in my father's absence. He 
even attempted to scrape acquaint- 
ance with my mother, and asked her 
if she kept a school — there being eight 
of us ; when she, rather cautiously, 
said, " Yes, she kept a kind of a 
school." However, the " old fellow " 
attempted to drown himself, but 
changed his mind when in the water, 
and disappeared, to our great relief. 
For the reasons given, everything 
became so quiet that even the cow 
would ai)proach a stranger with sur- 
prise and without fear; which once 
led to a ludicrous scene. My father 
heard Crummie making a strange 
and loud noise, and on going to as- 
certain the cause of it, found her 
tearing in the direction of the house 
with a man holding on to her tail. 
He instantly let go his hold of it, and 
said that he was a sailor that had had 
experience in the East Indies with 
wild cattle, and that his safety when 
attacked by them depended on his 
catching them by the tail and hold- 
ing on to it, whatever might happen. 
It turned out that the cow had gone 
up to him in the most friendly man- 
ner, which Jack construed into a 
challenge ; hence the result. The 
poor animal when freed instantly 
turned round and stared at him. 

There was no road to the Lazar- 
etto, except a foot-path for only 
part of the way ; for the rest was 
over the beach that was covered at 
high tide, so that a detour had some- 
times to be made in going to and 
from it. In some places only there 
would be the remains of the ruts 
made by cart wheels when one hap- 
pened to go in that direction. The 
inner bay or harbour became dry at 
low water, so that my father, when in 
a hurry to reach the town of Inver- 
keithing in the morning, would cross 
to the East Ness on stilts to keep 
his feet dry when passing the shallow 
channel ; and return in the same di- 
rection in the afternoon, by calling 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



9 



on one of the boatmen to go over 
and ferry him and his stilts to where 
he had started from. In this way he 
would cut off fully three-fourths of the 
distance to St. Davids. 

The only people that lived near 
the Lazaretto were two families. The 
first consisted of Daniel Nicol and 
his wife, and a young woman related 
in some way to them. Daniel ceased 
to be employed in the establishment 
after the cholera in 1832. He seem- 
ed to have owned his house, which 
was next to ours, with a hedge be- 
tween them ; and to have built the 
other three sides of his garden fence, 
from the stone ballast that was dis- 
charged from the old floating Lazar- 
etto. He appears to have been 
originally a gardener, or a farm serv- 
ant, or one that understood garden- 
ing thoroughly, for he kept the ground 
well cultivated. It contained a fine 
variety of gooseberries and currants 
of every kind ; none of which he ever 
sold or gave away, nor could the in- 
mates of his house possibly use more 
than a small part of what was grown. 
AVe had nothing of the kind on our 
side of the hedge, or inside of the 
quarantine wall. Close to the dry- 
stone fences of Daniel's garden were 
currants in the greatest quantity ; 
and sometimes he would tell us to 
help ourselves over the fence, and 
sometimes let us do it without telling 
us. At other times he would make 
a dreadful noise if he saw us even 
touch a berry. This was a great temp- 
tation to so many children ; and as 
they could not understand the singu- 
lar capiice of the man, they came to 
the conclusion that they had almost 
a right to help themselves whether 
they were told to do it or not. After 
leaving the employment in the Lazar- 
etto, I do not know how Daniel 
lived. He kept a cow, and he nmst 
have had some little money ; for one 
day in passing at some distance from 
his door my sister next older to me 
])icked up a pound, in my presence, 
which my mother sent to him, not 
doubting that it was his, when he 



raised a great disturbance, by saying 
that the child stole it out of his house. 
He was considered an " ill-haired 
auld loon," whose nose always fell 
a-bleeding on my mother alluding to 
a large bag of feathers which she had 
omitted to remove from the Lazaretto 
on its being occupied in consequence 
of the cholera, as I have already 
mentioned. None of us liked him, 
and I the least of any, particularly 
after his threatening to send me to 
Dunfermline jail under the following 
circumstances : — 

There was a small flock of sheep 
pastured in the autunm on the land 
back of the Lazaretto, with which he 
had nothing to do. I was in the 
habit of going at night and catching 
one of the sheep and riding it ; and 
I got so fond of the sport that I 
would do it in the day-time, by driv- 
ing the sheep where they could not 
be seen. I succeeded, towards the 
evening, in catching the biggest sheep 
of the tlock, and got on its back, and 
felt absolutely happy, when a terrible 
"hollo" from behind made me tum- 
ble off the sheep's back, without dar- 
ing to look around to see who the 
person was, or what he wanted. 
Then I heard Daniel's gruff voice 
saying, " Get up and be ready to 
go to Dunfermline jail with me to- 
morrow morning, immediately after 
breakfast." My happiness was soon 
changed into misery, for I really be- 
lieved that that would happen which 
was threatened. 

Much as I disliked Daniel person- 
ally, 1 had a heart's hatred for his 
cat ; and it was difficult to se|)arate 
the two in my mind. I seldom saw 
it, and never could approach it. 
Daniel had evidently been settled 
there from the time that the land 
was wild, for his wife used to say that 
adders or vipers were so counnon 
that they would seem to move about 
among her feet as she would hoe her 
potatoes. His breed of cats seemed 
to have grown so wild as little inoie 
than nominally to admit of tlomesti- 
cated relations. Insitie of ih;i; bigh 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



wall of the quarantine I let my rab- 
bits run at large ; their only covering 
from wet being the wooden building 
and sheds before alluded to. Every 
young rabbit, whether tame or wild, 
l)ut into the enclosure disappeared, 
nor could a brood be reared ; the 
old rabbits only held their own. I 
was satisfied that there were no wea- 
sels or rats inside of the wall, and 
I could refer the mischief only to 
Daniel's cat ; and my only remedy 
was to get my father to line the trunk 
of a tree (the branches of which 
nearly touched the wall) with dry 
whin bushes, but without effect. For 
the cat evidently climbed to the top 
of the wall on the S. W. corner, where 
it was not far from the ground on the 
outside, as compared with the height 
within. 

Daniel's wife, a tottering old wo- 
man, very well liked by us, went un- 
der no other name than " Auld 
Luck." Almost as far back as I can 
recollect, I remember her getting a 
cow, and engaging for her herd Jock 
Hadden, the youngest son of Mark 
Hadden, one of the quarantine boat- 
men ; and asking him to go into her 
house to get his "arles" (what bind 
a bargain). Feeling curious to know 
what was meant by Jock getting his 
" arles," I followed, and saw her with 
her thumb spread a large oatmeal 
cake with butter, which Jock ate 
with great relish. I have said that we 
were not particular about helping 
ourselves to currants over the stone 
fence of Daniel's garden ; but I once 
ventured inside of it for that purpose, 
'When " Auld Luck " made her ap- 
pearance. I immediately crawled 
■between some pease that were high 
■in their growth, and well sticked up, 
and fit for picking ; when the totter- 
ing old body began to pick them 
(light over me. 1 naturally felt un- 
comfortable, but less so when I 
.quietly turned round face upwards, 
and fixed my eyes on her counte 
,nance and perceived that she did not 
jiotice me. 

The youn^ waman spoken of was 



Lizzie Nicol, generally called " Pus- 
sie Nicol." She was regarded by us 
with the greatest affection, and we 
were hardly ever separated from her. 
I have said that she was in some way 
related to old Daniel and his wife ; 
but she seemed much superior to 
them, allowing for the difference in 
their ages. She was a tall and rather 
slim but handsome young woman, 
with dark brown hair, pietty blue 
eyes, and florid complexion ; and was 
almost lady-like in her bearing, so 
far as a child could judge. She was 
frequently dressed in a blue gown 
with small white spots, which took 
with us all. All, besides the chil- 
dren, liked her. I well remember 
the piteous feeling which she showed 
on finding that on putting n)y brother 
next youngest to me down from her 
arms, his cheek almost became ript 
open by a needle that was in her 
bosom. She left the place before us. 
The last I remember of her was her 
racing Daniel's cow backwards and 
forwards, as fast as it could run, 
while my father dashed a pail of wa- 
ter over it each time, to cure it of 
the effects of having eaten too freely 
of wet clover. Whatever became of 
her, she remained embalmed in our 
memories. 

The other family consisted of Mark 
Hadden, the boatman, his wife, and 
three sons and two daughters. There 
was nothing particular about Mark 
except that he was lazy and uncouth- 
looking, and somewhat bent in his 
person, and blind of an eye, or had 
something the matter with it. On 
one Sunday morning, pretty early for 
a Sunday, I saw his wife treating him, 
while sitting betvveen the fire and the 
window, as children are generally 
treated once a week, when if the la- 
bour is not more or less successful, 
they are hardly considered healthy ; 
but I never saw a man so treated be- 
fore. I reported what I saw to my 
mother, as something like " black 
cattle in a park." The " planting of 
the thorn " was a more agreeable 
scene, for we all turned out, under 



J?EMINTSCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



II 



the most i>leasant circumstances, to 
carefully i)rei)are the ground and 
plant a small hawthorn tree, with 
every demonstration of success to it ; 
and which we often visited and tend- 
ed with care. I cannot say the same 
of the killing of Mark's pig, for it 
happened when I was almost ready 
to start for school ; but do what I 
could, and short as the distance was, 
I arrived only after the family had 
got the liver put into the frying-pan 
for breakfast. I felt shocked by the 
haste shown on the occasion. 

Mrs. Hadden, generally called 
" Luckie Hadden," accused me once 
of theft under the following circum- 
stances : — On my way to school, and 
immediately to the west of her 
house, but outside of her premises, 
my eye suddenly caught sight of a 
round and clearly defined hole of 
moderate size that led into a whin 
bush, as it touched and became 
mixed with the grass. The conclu- 
sion was unavoidable that there was 
something peculiar there, so that 1 
put in my arm and brought out a soda 
water bottle (the first 1 ever saw) 
more than half full. On finding that 
it contained whiskey, I instantly took 
it to a rock on the beach and 
smashed it into many })ieces. I had 
no proof as to whose whiskey it was, 
but no doubt that it belonged to 
Luckie Hadden, who was a drunken 
old jade. After jierforming what I 
considered a good deed, I had no 
other thoughts than that of telling my 
mother, when I returned from school, 
what I had done, and of passing 
Hadden's house hi my usual man- 
ner. None of its inmates had proof 
that I had even seen the whiskey, but 
ihey entertained no doubt as to the 
offender ; and all of them — parents 
as well as children — were on the 
watch for me, and abused me sadly, 
calling me by every name they could 
lay their tongues on. And " steal 
the whiskey " stuck to me for many 
days ; but I neither admitted nor de- 
nied it. It was doubtless a heart- 
breaking disappointment to the i)oor 



woman when she missed her bottle ; 
but she should have been more care- 
ful in hiding it, and not have tempted 
a child to do what it did. 

I have already spoken of Jock 
Hadden as Mrs. Nicol's herd. He 
is the first person I remember of 
that stirred in my breast the feeling 
of anger. He had promised me a 
stick with a peculiarly crooked head 
and did not give it to me. With this 
exception, I was very partial to 
Jock, and he was very kind to me. 
He had a great knack for building 
children's houses ; and I reniember 
how hap|)y I felt when we sli^red 
between us one that contained a 
chimney of brick, neatly plastered, 
so far as a child of that age could 
judge. — Annie Hadden was lame, 
and looked as if palsied on one side, 
and mentally deficient, and wore 
boots for her deformed limb. Still, 
she was a resource when I happened 
to fall out with my three sisters, all 
older than myself; on which occa- 
sions they would reproach me with, 
" Gang wi' Annie Hadden, gang wi' 
Annie Hadden ! " and once they 
managed to strike up some doggerel 
in connection with us. But these 
separations did not last long. 

Our next neighbours were an old 
blacksmith, his wife, and his daughter 
Rachel, or " Rech," that married the 
foreman of the Cruicks' farm, who 
bore a Highland name. Tlieir house 
stood on the left on leaving tlie In- 
verkeithing road to go to the Ferry 
by the old way over the hills. The old 
blacksmith was a queer-looking little 
creature, but very entertaining ; and 
his wife was an "old crow" that was 
seldom seen. " Rech " was a coun- 
try lass, of a huthery-tuthery make- 
up, and black-eyed, and by no means 
ill-looking. She was partial to us 
children, and we rathf^r liked her. 
But sometimes there would be dis- 
satisfaction felt on our receiving arti- 
cles that were left at her father's 
house for us to call or send for them. 
The smithy, as is the case in country 
places, was a general resort for cer- 



12 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



tain kinds of people ; and I would 
frequently go there to see the black- 
smith's monkey, (the first one I ever 
saw), and his bull-terrier " Pincher," 
which would follow me, and " take 
the water " as well as any water-dog 
])roi)er. " Rech's " husband would 
spruce himself up of a Sunday, and 
set out to church in his blue coat 
with brass buttons, as big as any- 
body ; but there was a sad come- 
down when I met him some years 
afterwards in Leith, picking up stray 
work as a i^orter. 

The people mentioned were the 
only inhabitants on the north side of 
the peninsula, living within a mile of 
us, and whose dwellings were within 
sight of Inverkeithing. The other in- 
habitants lived on the coast or shore 
on the south side, and consisted of 
the toll-keeper, Mr. Cathcart (already 
alluded to), whose property of St. 
Margaret's Point long afterwards be- 
came Captain Elder's, Mr. Pringle of 
the Ferry Barns, and the residents at 
and immediately above the Ferry. 

At the time to which I allude the 
chemical works (afterwards called 
Jamestown) had been out of use for 
some time, and were closed. I re- 
member when they were in opera- 
tion, and of seeing magnesia made, 
immediately to the left f)f the en- 
trance; and an old man driving two 
carts of coals to the works daily. 
The last season I saw Ord, the cele- 
brated circus-rider, pei'form was in a 
turf ring in front of the building, 
where the road strikes off for the 
Ness, when he retired to the gate of 
it (which was closed) to change his 
a|)parel to suit his characters. On 
the time previous to that he entered 
niside of the gate for the same pur- 
l)Ose. His only remuneration was a 
lottery ; I think a sixpence a chance. 
A wealthy man living in the neigh- 
bourhood won a boll of oatmeal, and 
the buzz of the assemblage was, 
"Now the poor will be considered"; 
but the worthy man said that the 
meal was for' his own poor, that is, 
his own family. 



The old Cruicks' farm-houses were 
not used after the new steading was 
built, except for occasional puri)oses, 
such as holding harvest-homes, or 
" kirns " as they were called. I rec- 
ollect having missed being present 
at one of these, and of examining the 
place with the herd the next morning. 
He caught a large mouse and flayed 
it, spreading its fat over it as we see 
done with a lamb, and expressed his 
wonder at how it had feasted the 
night before. " No, no," said 1, 
" that mouse did not take on that fat 
in one night." 

In the summer of 1834 a boy from 
one of the grocers in Inverkeithing 
brought to our house a large English 
cheese and several bottles of brandy, 
which our mother, after considerable 
question and hesitation, took in, as 
the boy asserted positively that they 
were for her. She had the cheese 
scraped, as it might after all be for 
her, but she doubted that the brandy 
was ; that being a thing not used in 
the house, although there might have 
been a little kept for medicinal pur- 
poses. Whiskey and port and sherry 
constituted the only liquors ; and 
these were never used except on 
conventional occasions. Indeed the 
only spirit that was in demand was 
Riga balsam, for cuts, bruises, and 
what not. It turned out that the 
cheese and brandy were intended for 
a family that had taken, as summer 
quarters, the Cruicks' new farm- 
house, which had never been occu- 
pied by its owner. This was a tem- 
porary addition to the inhabitants of 
a different order from what we were 
accustomed to. The head of the 
house, a tall, well-built, well-filled-up, 
fair and florid, and fine-looking man, 
that rode a large and handsome 
horse, and his son, equally prepos- 
sessing, mounted on a fine Shetland 
pony, were what we had never seen 
before. An intimate acquaintance 
instantly sprang up. The son was 
too much of a man in importance to 
keep company with the like of us ; 
but his sister, accompanied by a 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



13 



pretty little black and white spaniel, 
went with my three sisters and my- 
self to see what sights children have 
to show on such occasions. First 
we showed her the Ferry Hills, east 
of the road, clothed throughout in 
the finest of pasture, and (one might 
say) covered with horses, cattle and 
sheep ; then the various scenes in all 
directions ; and after that Port Laing 
sands, the salmon stake-nets there, 
and the place where some snow was 
always found after it had disappeared 
everywhere else, in consequence of 
it slipping off the hill and accumulat- 
ing in the hollow below. Previously 
none of us had ever thought of pass- 
ing over the pasture land, where there 
were so many horses and cattle, un- 
less we were with a grown-up person; 
but the sheep we were never afraid 
of, although sometimes a little suspi- 
cious of the rams. We sat down on 
the edge of the land at Port Laing, 
safe from possible dimger, and dis- 
cussed the subject of its occupants, 
especially the " dreadful bulls" that 
might be there. The pretty little 
spaniel, anything like which I had 
never seen before, attracted my at- 
tention far more than its mistress, 
interesting as she was, and a city girl 
at that ; and we were playing at her 
back when she suddenly exclaimed : 
— " Oh,< dear, what will Papa and 
Mamma say when they find that 
Neppie has been worrying all the 
sheep ? Neppie, Neppie, where's 
Neppie ? " On hearing his name 
called, Neppie ran to her, and was 
covered with reproaches and caresses 
for the fright he had given her, al- 
though he could not have stood up 
to one sheep if she had had a lamb 
by her side. 

We then started for our house, to 
show the Lazaretto, and opposite to 
it St. Davids, the wooded hill, the 
flag-staff, the East Ness, and Inver- 
keithing stretching to the westward, 
and the bay, which had a pretty ap- 
pearance at high tide. Li our way 
we took in what little things children, 
so isolated as us, are apt to designate 



by a name — the wash-bowl, the cas- 
tle, the coach, the cradle, our uncle's 
ship, and such objects as others 
would not notice, or attach any 
meaning to. The wash-bowl was a 
rock having a hollow on the top that 
was filled at the highest tides, or 
when the waves rose, or by rain. 
Our newly-made acquaintance would 
wash her hands and face in the bowl, 
after which I made an insinuation as 
to its contents, which greatly dis- 
tressed her ; but I soothed her by 
protesting that it really was not so. 
We then came to the castle, and 
were proceeding to the ne.\t object 
when, to my astonishment, our friend 
and my second sister began a fight 
wliich ended in a " rough and tum- 
ble." At this time I was familiar 
with cock-fights, dog-fights and boy- 
fights, and had fought some battles 
myself. The quarrels of girls which 
I had seen had been confined to call- 
ing names, sometimes spitting at each 
other, and at the worst pulling caps ; 
but here was a real fight. The old 
idea at once seized me to see fair- 
play, whatever the result ; but when 
1 saw the two girls tumbling over 
each other, almost like dogs, and the 
stranger uppermost, I at once pulled 
her off. It was always a mystery to 
me why the girls, who were aged 
nearly 13, fell out in such a way, as 
their dispositions were the very oppo- 
site of being quarrelsome. The most 
striking thing about the matter was, 
that after being separated everything 
became as pleasant between them as 
before ; and we finished the day's 
excursion as if nothing of the kind 
had happened. 

The intercourse with the family 
mentioned continued till they left 
for their home, with nothing but the 
most agreeable associations, except- 
ing that on at least one occasion the 
bread at the table turned out to have 
been borrowed from " that auld 
craw," the blacksmith's wife. 

After this family had left, Mark 
Hadden's house, the second from 
ours towards the west, was occupied 



H 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



by one Giles, an Irish marine, and 
his wife, a Httle Irish woman. He 
had lost an arm in the service, and 
was living on a pension. He was a 
very tall and fine-looking man, which 
struck me afterwards when I saw it 
stated that all the Irish Giles' (in a 
rtrtain district) were tall men. Liv- 
ing, as it were, on half pay, Giles 
seemed to take to us as Government 
))eople in active service ; and be- 
came imbued with similar sentiments 
in regard to outsiders. Even his 
wife shared the same feeling, and, 
Irish as she was, she seems to have 
jiicked up a Scotch word having a 
])ecnliar meaning. Thus, when a 
strange girl was hanging about her 
door and staring at the premises, I 
heard her say, " What do you want 
here, and what are you glouring at ? " 

Giles took a fancy to me, and I 
got on well with him. He particu- 
larly asked me to tell him when I 
saw a frog in his well, which I there- 
fore scrutinized very closely when 
])assing both ways; feeling curious 
to know what could be his object, as 
1 had always understood that it was 
desirable to have a frog visit a well. 
One day I was pleased to find the 
long-sought-for frog, and I rushed to 
his house with, " Giles, there's a frog 
in your well !" In great haste he seized 
a stick with three prongs in triangular 
fashion at the end of it and started 
for the well. He instantly caught 
the frog on the three-pronged spear 
and killed it, which did not raise him 
in my estimation. 

He and his wife had a hobby for 
cliickens and reared many of them, 
having fully a hundred at a time. 
On coming home, at about one 
o'clock in the morning, from some 
special meeting or party in Inver- 
keithing. my father on passing his 
l)lace heard a peculiar noise in the 
hen-house, which he could not reach 
from where he stood. He listened 
for a moment and became convinced 
that there was a person in the house 
killing the chickens ; and, raising a 
great shout, threatened to blow his 



brains out. Like one confounded, 
a man, with as great a shout of fear, 
started almost from under his feet, 
and bolted through the hedge of 
the garden. Several loud knocks 
brought no response from Giles, but 
his wife was heard to say, little louder 
than a whisper and evidently in fear, 
" Giles, there's something wrong to- 
night " ; and but for which the con- 
clusion would have been that both 
Giles and his wife were from home. 
But when he heard a friendly voice 
calling out, "Get up, Giles, you 
have lost all your chickens," he was 
soon on his feet, with a lantern in 
his hand. 

Next morning I was all excite- 
ment to be at the scene, where I 
found a number of chickens goirg 
about with their necks more or less 
bare, showing that the fellow had 
not been up to his business. I then 
visited the roost, and looking around 
discovered that the thief had stood 
on no ceremony in going, but left a 
clear gap in tne hawthorn hedge 
(which was ])retty tall, but not thick) 
from the middle of it upwards. Not 
a hen had been stolen ; but of those 
dead two of the best were sent to 
us, and the rest were sold. A bag, 
bearing the marks of the Govern- 
ment hulk that rode at anchor in 
St. Margaret's Hope, was found. The 
result to us was the presentation of 
two fine chickens; and to the robber 
the loss of his bng, the fright he got, 
doubtless a scratched face in passing 
through the hedge, and the chagrin 
at having been balked of his prey. 

Besides looking after his chickens 
Giles had nothirig to do, and so he 
constantly strolled around the coast, 
and appropriated everything coming 
ashore that could not be identified 
by any one ; and anything that was 
of no use to him, and which would 
suit me, I got from him. Thus he 
once gave me a neat little sloop fully 
rigged, with chain and anchor, which 
a boy claimed ; but the only satis- 
faction he got was, " Go to Giles ; I 
got it from him." At this time 1 



REMINISCENCES OF IN VERICEI THING. 



15 



thoroughly understood the meaning 
of the word " wrecker," and fol- 
lowed the ways of one on everything 
that came ashore within the limits. 
On one occasion, well on in the 
evening, I noticed, with wide-open 
eyes, a small two-masted craft com- 
ing across the bay from near the 
foundery, and, wet as it was, and 
wretchedly as I was shod, I instantly 
proceeded west to appropriate her 
when she would come ashore ; but 
to my sorrow I perceived a boy, 
three or four years older than myself, 
coming in the opposite direction to 
recover his boat, that apparently had 
got away from him when sailing it. 
He arrived before it came to land, a 
few feet west of Pinkie well, which 
deprived me of any possible right, 
which extended only to a thing that 
beached. He attended the school 
that I did, and evidently compre- 
hended the situation. The craft was 
a very handsome schooner, of rather 
small size ; and I remarked, " Bet- 
ter a small one and a good OTie," 
when he looked down to my feet 
with scorn, and replied, " Yes, better 
small ones and good ones" — in allu- 
sion to my having on a pair of one of 
my sister's shoes, olil ones at that, 
and far too big for me. 1 had to 
swallow the insult, for the boy was 
far too big for me to tackle ; but I 
kept a record of it, in case I might 
be able to "pay him off" in some 
way. 

As a "wrecker," I was at first rather 
jealous of Giles, for he was an in- 
truder, and not in " active service," 
as we were. But his great kindness, 
and his giving me what suited me, 
disarmed me of every feeling of the 
kind mentioned. Many and many a 
time have I and my brother next 
youngest to me run around on the 
rocks from the Ness to Fort Laing 
sands, to find what had been cast 
ashore. We would dart our eyes 
from one rock or spot to another, 
and cry, " I traps that " ; and we al- 
ways respected what each of us 
" trapsed." If there was anything 



worthy of being picked up, .ve would 
return by the rocks and take it 
home. But it would commonly hap- 
pen that, although each of us had 
" trapsed " or chosen even a dozen 
things apiece, we would return by 
land ; and probably I would start the 
cry of " a weasel," and we would 
have a run for home — the distance 
not being great. 

The allusion to my sister's old 
shoes — which I had on, for some 
special reason which I do not recol- 
lect — reminds me that at our isolat- 
ed residence it was our custou) to 
have what might be called three suits 
of clothes ; one for church, one for 
school or everyday conventional oc- 
casions, and one for home, which 
was not worth much. And this rule 
was observed by my father likewise. 
1 well recollect him following, to- 
wards dusk, the reapers (close to our 
house), behind me, as I was gleaning 
after them for the benefit of my rab- 
bits and pigeons ; and his picking up 
a straw here and there for amuse- 
ment. A strange female reaper 
turned round and asked " who that 
auld beggar was " ; which discon- 
certed them greatly, and was any- 
thing but pleasing to me. It was 
our custom to give a substantial din- 
ner, of broth and beef, and bread 
and cheese and whiskey, to the reap- 
ers for two days every season ; and 
there was always a bottle for tiie 
farmer himself, whenever he was on 
the ground, which soon became 
known to those in the house. Some- 
times he had real complaints of the 
children trespassing, where there were 
no fences, and generally pretended 
ones ; but he was never allowed to 
get the length of making them, for 
the kind reception and the whiskey 
bottle always proved a bar to any- 
thing of thai nature. If he was seen 
coming up the walk, the bottle was 
instantly placed on the table, and 
met his eye before he could open his 
mouth. 

The cholera season of 1832 is viv- 
idly im|)ressed on my memory. For 



i6 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



some time before that 1 had been at 
the parish school, which was dis- 
missed when the pestilence made its 
appearance in the town and neigh- 
bourhood. I have no recollection of 
having realized in any form the so- 
lemnity connected with this visitation 
of the angel of death ; and I am sat- 
isfied that I was incapable of doing 
it at that age, unless it had been of 
the death of an inmate of the family, 
or of one with whom I had stood in 
close and constant relationship. My 
associations connected with the chol- 
era are those of the most unalloyed 
pleasure I ever experienced ; the 
event was the golden age of my ex- 
istence, the epoch to which I soon 
began to look back as the dim anti- 
quity of real happiness. There were 
the disnnssal of the school, the beau- 
tiful weather, the family all at home, 
their variety of plays and amuse- 
ments, the bigger boys of the town 
sailing and squabbling all over the 
bay, the burning of tar barrels, and 
the half-solemn, half-exciting discus- 
sions of what to me was incompre- 
hensible. Then there were the 
bustle about the Lazaretto, which had 
been disused some time before, the 
boatmen moving about, the receipt 
and dispatch of merchandise by ves- 
sels, the supplying of the men inside 
the building with necessaries, and 
my daily watching all these opera- 
tions. Then there was my father 
going about the house several times 
a day with a saucer (having a piece 
out of the side of it) containing 
saltpetre and vinegar, and fumigat- 
ing everything by stirring the contents 
with a red-hot poker. Then there 
was us children taking our nieals 
(not playing with " tea things ") inside 
of the hedge at the bottom of the 
garden, under the trees, on table- 
cloths spread on the ground. At 
this time I got what 1 thought was a 
real watch, but what became of it I 
never knew ; and a knife, the edge 
of which was taken off by one of the 
boatmen for safety, and which I lost, 
but afterwards recovered after a lapse 



of what to a child was an age. The 
whole scene, as I have said, ^^as to 
me one of real happiness. 

I have also a vivid, but not so 
minute, recollection of the procession 
on the passing of the Reform Bill, in 
1832, a short time I think before the 
cholera made its appearance. The 
people from our direction met back 
of the road between the " witches' 
knowe " and the chemical works (now 
Jamestown) and west of the culvert 
that receives the water passing be- 
tween the two hills there. We then 
proceeded to the main street of the 
town, where I was taken to form part 
of a procession of the boys of our 
school ; marching two abreast, with 
peeled willows in our hands, and 

having Bobbie on my left. What 

vexed me at first, and detracted 
from the pleasure of the occasion, 
was that every boy but myself had 
white trousers ; which doubtless 
arose from our living " out of town," 
and not being informed of the pro- 
gramme of the procession. We 
then went down the harbour wynd ; 
on the corner of the entrance to 
which I noticed my mother shaking 
her hand at me, which still further 
detracted from the pleasure of the 
occasion, in the uncertainty of its 
meaning. We continued our march 
to a hollow behind the flag-staff, near 
the end of the crescent that leads to 
the East Ness. There we had speech- 
es and huzzaing, music and drinking, 
and all kinds of excitement. On re- 
turning, the procession, or a large 
part of the people forming it, pro- 
ceeded to the residence of a shipper 
of coals overlooking the harbour — a 
white - coloured house, apparently 
plastered or stuccoed — and had a 
speech from him, frequently inter- 
rupted by cheering. And there my 
recollection of the procession ends, 
excepting whether it was in passing 
or repassing (most probably the lat- 
ter) the only cottage on the crescent 
that had pillars in front of it, that the 
Ci-owd cheered its inmate, the toast 
of the town. On returning home, 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



the first thing I did was to ask my [ 
mother why she shook her hand at j 
me, at the top of the wynd ; when 
she said it was because I was " sniff- 
teiing" (snuffing up when there is 
nothing to snuff up), which 1 softly 
denied, without tliinking how she 
could either have seen or heard me 
'• snirt'tering " from the distance at 
which she was from me. 

Soon after the cholera in 1832, the 
Lazaretto was practically discon- 
tinued. When we left it, in 1835, 
what little ground there was attaclied 
to it, or inside of its wall, had been 
sadly neglected. As I have already 
said, the building was not used for 
ony purpose for some time before the 
cholera ; but there seems to have 
been a company of boatmen at- 
tached to the station from the time 
of its erection, some of whom lived 
in the watch-house. These had lit- 
tle to do, and some of them seem to 
have attended to the grounds, as a 
matter of i)ersonal taste and pleasure. 
1 do not remember having seen any- 
thing done to beautify the premises, 
or even affect them in any way. 
Things were allowed to take care of 
themselves, while people were kept 
from injuring them. rerha])s the 
uncertainty of the continuance of the 
establibhment had this effect. At all 
events, the only time I saw the 
ground disturbed was when some ]>o- 
tatoes were i)lanted inside of the 
wall, and son.e cabbage outside, be- 
hind the dwelling-house; but by 
whose hand this was done I do not 
remember. I never saw my father 
even with a spade in his hand, ex- 
cept when burying an unfortunate 
hare which I had brought home. 

One day he started from the house 
in the direction of i*ort I.aing sands, 
with a manure or i)otato fork in his 
hmd, while I carried a basket. I 
did not ask him what was his object, 
although he would doubtless have 
told me if 1 had done it. The fork 
1 had often seen, and had once used 
for a peculiar purpose, as I shall in 
another place ex[)lain ; but the bas- 



ket 1 had never seen before. 1 t'elt 
curious as to his intentions, which 
turned out to be to dig one row, of a 
small size, of potatoes which he had 
bought at a sale or "roup." This 
surprised me, as I had never before 
that seen a man in black, with a 
black neckcloth and no display of 
linen but a ruffled breast, digging 
potatoes ; and I felt hurt. 1 had oft- 
en experienced the benefit of his 
style of dressing, for it had many a 
time kept " blackguard boys" off me 
— serving as a scarecrow or " pota- 
to boggle" for that purpose, even 
under iirovocation. The row yielded 
very few potatoes, not worth carry- 
ing home; and I thought that I might 
have had them presented to me while 
in the ground to divide them among 
the herds, who generally stole their 
potatoes by dijjging them with their 
hands while allowing the vines to 
stand. This was doubtless a case of 
bidding at a " roup " at which he 
had accidentally foimd himself; or a 
whim of a man whose official duties 
sometimes did not take up all of his 
time. It had some resemblance to 
his once " cli|iping a sheep," when 
he sent for a sheet and cut my hair 
in the open air ; and which I shortly 
afterwards found as the inner lining of 
a chaffinch's nest. It could not have 
been for economy, for at all other 
times I had had my hair cut by an 
old weaver, in one of the closes of 
Inverkeithing, whose charge I think 
was a halfpenny for a child, and a 
penny for a grown-up person. 

We had nothing to complain of at 
home, for what might be called the 
discipline of the family was reason- 
able, and reasonably although strict- 
ly carried out. There was nothing 
of the nature of caprice or arbitrari- 
ness, and far less of cruelty, although 
occasionally punishment might have 
been less frequently and more leni- 
ently administered. Familiarity was 
certainly not the rule ; but when it 
was not indulged in, nothing offen- 
sive took its place. There was suffi- 
cient of it to confirm and intensify 



IS 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



the affection on the part of the chil- 
dren which nature iuiplant-ed in their 
lireasts ; and for the rest they were 
allowed every reasonable privilege of 
children. Hence the affection on 
the ])art of the children was accom- 
]ianied by that feeling of obedience 
which was proper to be shown to a 
father ; and in which fear in the of- 
fensive sense of the word had 
no i)lace. There was something that 
Feemed reasonable, or not unreason- 
able, which we had to do, or take 
the consequences, which, however, 
left no hard feelings behind them. 
He was the superintendent, and it 
was only occasionally that he had to 
appear to preserve order. He never 
interfered with matters in the house 
that came within the sphere of a 
woman's duties, for with these he 
would never trouble himself. 

We had at all times a full-grown, 
sensible and exjierienced woman in 
the family that could be relied on, 
and that could make herself useful in 
every way as regards housework and 
ihe care of children ; but we did 
.not keep them long, for they got 
married, and left with the good-will 
•of us. all, and "tea things" costing 
,])robably a ]5ound on each occasion. 
I believe we had three sisters in sue- 
■cession. All these, being so well 
-treated, never forfeited the confi- 
dence ])laced in them ; and I do not 
•recollect of an unpleasant circum- 
stance in connection with them. 
They certainly were a little arbitra- 
ry with us boys, as they would scrub 
us of a Saturday morning in a tub in 
the little nursery ; but there was our 
ifather for them to appeal to if we got 
obstreperous, which on that account 
-seldom happened. They might grab 
us by the back of the neck and wash 
us sharply in the tub, or dij) us in 
'the sea less gently than they nn'ght 
have done, but we never complained. 
The cou)plaint was more apt to come 
'from those attending to us. 

They were generally decided kind 
-of women, with not the most forbear- 
ling of tempers, as .on ,o,ne occasion 



I remember, when my bt other next 
youngest to me, between three and 
four years old, required attendance, 
which was of frequent occurrence. 
We were playing on a very warm 
day, at the edge of the bay where the 
water was shallow ; and I called to 
Mary, who came like a tigress, and 
tore the clothes oft' the child, and, 
seizing him by the leg and arm. threw 
him into the water, and waded in after 
him, and waslied him, and carried 
him on one arm, and his clothes on 
the other, into the house, which was 
close to where we were. On another 
occasion, pretty much all the children 
were sitting at the east side of the 
Lazaretto wall, when the child men- 
tioned accidentally got well down the 
pier, and we were all afraid that he 
would run over it. lUit Mary, with 
great tact, called him by name, with 
the promise of an ajiple ; and gave 
him a good spanking on his reaching 
her. ^lary was of the age at which 
women are said to be desperate; but 
she got a husband, one much younger 
than herself. 

I recollect in particular one of 
these "maids," as they were called — ■ 
Lillie, a fair-haired, blue-eyed, and 
prepossessing young woman, rather 
small in size, but of nerve and deci- 
sion. However sharjily she managed 
me, I never then or at any subsequent 
time had any feelings of resentment 
against her than if she had been my 
mother. She was a woman of tact. 
On one occasion, when in the kitchen, 
1 objected to go to church, and she 
said that even the birds had gone to 
the church ; and sure enough there 
were about twenty sparrows sitting 
around a blackbird in the leafless 
hedge — p.'-obably from a hawk being 
near. And when I objected to take 
my porridge with " molasses" (trea- 
cle diluted with water) when milk 
was scarce, she said that I should 
not do that, for if I took the molasses 
I would have a beard as black as Mr. 
Cobban's when I grew up.* Jn this 

* This Mr. Cobban was in the Custom- 
house at Inverkeithing, and was trans- 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



19 



way was the difficulty got over in 
both instances. 

My mother, with lier large family 
following each other so closely, stood 
in need of all the assistance which 
such women could give her. In 
every way we were well looked after; 
and there was not an accident worth 
speaking of that befell any of us ex- 
cept the trifling ones to myself, as I 
shall rel-te. 

After being ready to start for 
scliool, when I was about six years 
old, I had been playing on a stone 
the top of which ])resented a sharp 
declivity. I slipped ofif it, and strik- 
ing on my chin, drove my teeth 
through my tongue, or cut it badly. 
Still i was packed ofif to the school. 
My tongue certainly felt sore, and 
particularly when 1 came to eat my 
midday bread and butter, in the house 
of the kindly old family midwife. 
The occasion was very trying, for 
there was the appetite which could 
not be gratified ; but bhe said, " Let 
me see what a little sugar put on the 
butter will do," which helped me 
wonderfully. —On another occasion, 
when between eight and nine, I was 
on a tree behind our house, and one 
of my sisteis dared me to jump from 
it. " Yes," 1 said, " I'll jum;) if 1 
should break my neck." Tliere was 
no real danger that could arise from 
the height, but the branch from which 
1 leapeil being unsteady, led to the 
accident. My next conscious mo- 
ment was awaking in bed, wiiii my 
mother, father and uncle hanging 
over me. I afterwards learned that I 
was stunned on reaching the ground, 
which brought out my mother ; but 
that before she reached me I got on 
my feet, and ran around the most 
jiart of the Lazaretto wall before I 
was caught. I was out the same 
day, certainly the next one, as usual. 

The other instance can hardly be 
considered an acciilent. The inner 
bay or harbour of Inveikeithing is left 

ferred to that at Alloa, I believe, about 
1S53. He had remarkably large and 
bushy black whiskers. 



dry at low water, and the muddy sur- 
face presents a wretched contrast to 
the scene when the tide has returned, 
and is at its height. One day on 
going home from school, with bag 
on back, I turned up my trousers as 
far as they could go, and started 
across from the bottom of the manse 
garden in the direction of Pinkie 
well. When nearly halfway over my 
imagination became possessed by the 
idea of bogs and the bottomless pit ; 
and it seemed the same if 1 tried to 
turn back or proceed. I kept on my 
way, and got out at " Pinkie," and 
there washed my little shanks in the 
pool at which cows were watered, 
none the worse, and less dis[)osed to 
repeat the feat. 

After the cholera disappeared the 
Lazaretto was used for no other pur- 
pose than any occasional one the 
family might have for it. The wooden 
building, with its three stories, was a 
tine i)laying place for the elder chil- 
dren, and the stone building for all 
the children, in wet weather ; and the 
ground inside the wall served the 
same purpose when it was dry. 
Hens when they had chickens were 
put inside of the wall to protect them 
against the weasels, which were com- 
mon outside, in consequence of which 
we had no rats about the premises ; 
at least I never saw but one, when 
it was dead and being dragged by a 
weasel. The family monthly washing 
was done in a room of the stone 
j building ; and twice a year a fire was 
kindled under a large pot on the 
ground to furnish, water to wash 
blankets and such things, in the open 
air, and in the Scotch fashion. I 
also had the use of the premises for 
my pigeons and rabbits. 

For several years before we left, in 
1835, all that was inside of the wall 
was comprised in the following : — 
two hand-trucks, a large swivel-musk- 
et, a sail soiled by pigeons, a pot 
and a tin each half-full of tar, in 
which 1 found a hen and a blackbird, 
sitting as on a nest, long dead, but 
well preserved, and a small pot with 



20 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



about an inch of brown paint, nearly 
as thick as putty, and a brush. The 
last use I made of the place was to 
kill, for the table, the rabbits I had 
running at large. Between the ends 
of the wooden building and the wall 
were two high palings (with gates), 
which divided the ground nearly in 
two; while a net ran along the back 
of the building, where there was an 
open space between the bottom of it 
and die ground. These made a divi- 
sion suitable for chickens. The pal- 
ing, being i)rivate ])roperty, was used 
to brace our furniture for shii^ping. 

' On one occasion my mother used 
the Lazaretto as a lock-up or prison 
for myself, but on what provocation 
1 do not remember. One day we 

noticed the boat of Captain 

leaving InveikeiUiing, evidently to 
pay us a visit. My mother imme- 
diately seized me by the collar and 
proceeded to " put me in quaran- 
tine"; but in place of acting more 
like a pig when laid hold of than a 
lamb when handled, I went laughing 
and capering before her, which evi- 
dently disconcerted her. I immedi- 
ately availed myself of the knowl- 
edge acquired when investigating 
the premises to ascertain how our 
neighbour's cat had reached my rab- 
bits, and got on the wall and droj)- 
ped from it on the S. W. corner, 
where it was not so high as at other 
parts of it. I then received the 
Captain and Bessie and Bobbie as 
they landed, and brought them up 
to the house, precisely as if nothing 
had hapi)ened ; not daring to cast a 
questionable glance at my mother, for 
fear of making things worse than 
they had been. However, I was 
never " put in quarantine " again. 

Isolated as we lived, there v.'ere 
few incidents to record in our his- 
tory. I remember, when the ground 
was deeply covered with snow, the 
pier leading to the Lazaretto being 
used, in the winter of 1831, for salt- 
ing and barrelling herrings, of which 
there was a large catch in the firth. 
The fish were transferred from the 



boats to a sloop, and there gutted 
before finding their way into barrels 
on the pier. — The next summer, or 
it may have been the summer of that 
year, I had the opportunity of seeing 
how kelp was made in all its pro- 
cesses, which were few. 'J'here were 
l^eople who cut, with the ordinary 
reaping-hook, sea-weed growing on 
the rocks ; a little of which was got 
inside of the harbour, and the rest on 
the rocks between the pier and Port 
Laing sands. This was floated as the 
tide rose, with a rope thrown around 
it, and towed to land by a boat. It 
was then treated exactly as hay is 
cured, and burned in a round stone 
circle of moderate height ; when the 
residue, after being puddled by iron 
rods, became the kelp of commerce. — 
Jt was an interesting sight to see the 
seine hauled. There was one end 
of the net fastened to the shore, and 
the boat making a half circle till it 
landed the other end of it, when 
both ends were brought together. 
The fish were then collected, and 
those not wanted thrown away or 
into the sea. 

I recollect but one instance of a 
person fishing with the rod. Being 
a stranger, I watched him closely as 
he api^roached the place with his 
rod and basket. He was an elderly 
man, dressed in something like port- 
wine-coloured clothes, with a black 
dress hat, and spectacles. It was a 
very blustering day, and he fixed his 
tackle in Daniel Nicol's byre, and 
tied the bait, consisting of the inside 
of crabs, on his hooks with wool; 
but he did not aj^parently get a bite. 
The most he could do was to keep 
his hat on, and prevent himself from 
being blown over the pier. I stuck 
to hmi from his arrival to his depart- 
ure, and treated him deferentially, 
for he looked like a man that might 
be allowed to go anywhere. With 
this he seemed pleased ; but not a 
word passed between us. 

Between Port Laing sands a,nd 
where we lived there was a bed of 
tangle, that was exposed during 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



spiing-tides, and in which were many 
urchins and hermit crabs. It was in- 
teresting to see the latter moving 
abont on the sand in the clear and 
shallow water. I thought I had 
seen every kind of animal that was 
to be found there ; and I felt sur- 
prised on observing an old man, on 
several occasions, returning past our 
house from the direction of this tan- 
gle-bed, generally with two lobsters, 
animals that I had never seen before. 
He was a queer-looking body, in 
corduroy knee-breeches, brown cloth 
coat, and dark cloth cap, with a tree 
leg having a large leathern socket, in 
which rested his knee, which was 
amputated a little below the joint. 
He seemed to be a pensioner, living 
somewhere in the neighbourhood. 
He carried a hooked stick of haw- 
thorn, apparently to pull out the 
lobsters from below or between the 
rocks. I never could ascertain how 
or where he got them, and I used to 
watch for him when the time of low 
water allowed me to be on the spot. 
I asked him on the first occasion 1 
saw him wh»*re he got the lobsters, 
but he declined telling me ; and I 
concluded that, to avoid discovery, 
he went to the place by making a 
detour by land, to prevent me fol- 
lowing him. And yet he would ap- 
pear with his lobsters. On one oc- 
casion I was examining one of them 
very closely, and before I could 
profit by his advice it caught me by 
one of my fingers, which made a last- 
ing impression on my memory. 

1 never got tlie length of fishing 
beyond catching crabs, among the 
rocks, with a string having bait tied 
to the end of it. — It was always an 
interesting occasion to go to Port 
Laing sands with the man who had 
charge of the stake-nets there, and 
see him collect the salmon caught in 
them. — Sometimes the crew of a 
boat from a man-of-war would land 
at the pier, and attract our special 
attention. I recollect one in par- 
ticular doing it in grand style when 
compared with the way of the old 



quarantine boatmen. — Occasionally 
a large steamer would arrive at St, 
Davids for coals, and blow off her 
steam, which always interested us. — 
Our maid Lillie had a brother who 
was a sailor, and who always came 
ashore to see her on the arrival of 
the vessel on which he was a hand. 
We stood in considerable awe of the 
" sailor," yet when I afterwards 
thought of his appearance and man- 
ner, I came to the conclusion that 
he was more timid when in our 
house (with a man in black inside) 
than we were. — I remember the pin- 
nace from Leith arriving just as it 
was getting dark, and missing the 
channel near the entrance of the 
harbour, and getting aground, well 
on towards low water, with tiie wind 
blowing from the east. The men on 
board instantly jumped into the wa- 
ter and tried to push the boat into 
the channel, and failing in that, in- 
dulged in a wonderful amount of 
cursing and swearing. — On one oc- 
casion two fishing-boats left Inver- 
keithing in company, but had not 
got more than half-way out of the 
harbour before the crews began to 
fight from their boats alongside of 
each other. It was the first fight be- 
tween men I had ever seen, or rather 
licard, for they were at some distance 
from me. They were evidently too 
drunk to do each other much injury 
with their fists ; but they made a hor- 
rible noise. The leading spirit, who 
had children at the school I at- 
tended, acted as if he had been 
crazy ; and I still remember the 
name he applied to one of iiis oppo- 
nents. — We were frequently annoyed 
by careless shooting from the other 
side of the harbour; two instances of 
which I recollect. One was a ball 
passing tlie right ear of our maul 
when washing the steps outside of 
the door, and fiattening itself on one 
of them close at her hand ; and I he 
other was one passing through a 
window of our sitting - room, and 
striking the wall opposite it. 

The island of Inchcolm, between 



22 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



two and three miles east of St. Da- 
vids, appeared from the back of our 
place as if it made part of the coast 
line; but as we moved a little towards 
Port Laing sands a thread of water 
would appear to separate it from the 
mainland ; a little further would show 
that a ladder would bridge the two ; 
and the distance would become great- 
er and greater as we kept moving in 
the same direction. This was always 
a subject of interest to us. — The ap- 
pearance of the lands of the Earl of 
Rosebery, on the opposite side of the 
firth, from Barnbougle Point to the 
west, also interested us greatly. 

1 do not remember having seen a 
goose in Inverkeithing, and was not 
aware of the existence of the animal, 
although the word was frecjuently 
enough bandied about among people. 
Chickens and turkeys and ducks I 
had seen, as well as the ordinary sea 
fowls, whether tiyers or swimmers, 
that never or hardly ever entered the 
harbour. On one very pleasant day, 
and when the tide was full, 1 noticed 
two enormously large white birds tly 
almost over my head (which at first 
scared me) and light on the water. 
With their snow-white plumage, black 
bills, and large and graceful appear- 
ance, they presented a grand sight, 
iloating a little inside of the entrance 
of the almost land-locked little inlet. 
This was the first time 1 saw a swan. 

My next grand sight, which did 
not turn out so i^leasanlly, was ob- 
served a little behind the farm-house, 
in a small strip of ground in which 
•were a few young trees, and consid- 
erable grass. As I had never seen 
sucli a i)henomenon before, 1 in- 
stantly looked u]') with astonishment. 
Here was a young man dressed in a 
]iort-wine-coloured coat, white vest 
and trousers, white beaver hat, pol- 
ishetl boots, light-coloured gloves, 
and brilliant cane, with an amazingly 
])ompous and imposing air. He stood 
looking at me while 1 stared at him 
in wonder, when he bawled out, 
" What are you doing there, you 
young scoundrel ? " " Seeking nests, 



sir," said I in fear. " Come out," 
said he, " and be ready to go to 
Dunfermline jail with me to-morrow 
morning, immediately after break- 
fast."* It was a long time before I 
recovered from this fi-ight ; and morn- 
ing after morning I was in the utmost 
dread of the aj^pearance of the man 
to carry out the punishment threat- 
ened. This young man was in all 
probability the nephew of the absen- 
tee owner. 

From our house we could recog- 
nize i)eople leaving Inverkeithing 
that we knew, and much more easily 
when they left the high-road and 
came along the beach in our direc- 
tion. My father, being about live 
feet and nine inches in height, and 
stout-built, and dressed in black, 
could easily be made out as he left 
the town ; and his coming always 
caused a pleasure at home. The 
view as far as the high-road might 
have extended over half a mile, and 
gave us time to i)rei)are for visitors, 
or consider in the event of the i)eo- 
ple being strangers. About half-way 
the road took a slight turn, so that 
the passenger for a very short time 
disappeared from view. On going 
home on one occasion, in wet weather, 
and long after the school had been 
dismisseii, I made this turn, and re- 
mained there with a herd-boy, at the 
west end of some ruinous houses, 
situated a little off the path, but to 
which access could be had through a 
ga|) in a dry stone fence, just where 
we were standing. It seems that my 
father had seen me coining along the 
beach and felt impatient at my not 
emerging from where the road took 
the turn ; and had gone to see what 
had become of me. However that 
might be, the herd-bcy and 1 felt for 
a moment paralyzed on seeing him 
pop his head through the gip, and 
turn it U()on us without uttering a 
word. I naturally stood stock-still, 

* This was the identical language used 
b)' Daniel Nicol, as I have related. It 
seems to have been the current phrase of 
the neiH;hbourhood. 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



23 



but the herd instantly ran, throwing 
off his cloak to facilitate his ihght, 
when my father started after him, 
but soon gave up the chase. We 
then went home in the best of hu- 
mour, without any allusion to what 
liad ha|)|)ened; but next morning I 
had some trouble in allaying the 
herd-boy's fears. " Why did you 
run?" said I. "Because I was 
afraid," he replied. "And why were 
you afraid ? " I continued. To that 
he could make no reply. My father 
had only gone to bring me home in 
the wet weather; the rest was but a 
whim of what 1 have already said 
was at times a half-idle man. 

There was a man who visited our 
house whose nominal calling was that 
of a slater, but he was useful for a 
variety of purposes, including that of 
chimney-sweeping. He would even 
shoot rooks for those who wanted them 
for i)ies, and would find them a hare 
at almost any time. I was particu- 
larly attached to him, for he would 
bring me wild young rabbits, which 
I would put insiile of the Lazaretto 
wall among my tame ones. He was 
a peculiar-looking man, with a wide- 
awake aspect, but in his way attract- 
ive, and well liked — in short, every- 
body's body; and on animals gen- 
erally he was a great authority. He 
might have been forty years old, and 
was remarkably active ; and in the 
summer season he was generally 
clothed in something like coarse 
linen. When lie visited us on busi- 
ness, of some kind or other, it was 
always early in the morning, and by 
crossing the bay when the tide was 
out. He was invariably accom|)anied 
by a handsome bull-terrier, which was 
ai)i)arently so trained that it would 
not, under almost any provocation, 
even touch a cat unless set on it by 
its master. It was always a subject 
of interest to us children when the 
dog arrived. It never caused any 
disturbance in the kitchen, beyond 
the sullen and ziz/.ag retreat of the 
cat — yet never showing a full brush — 
as the dog devoured the contents of 



its dish — apparently its breakfast — to 
which it was always made welcome. 
1 coveted this dog, which I found one 
morning, on my way to school, hunt- 
ing by itself, and "within the limits." 
I coaxed it to return with me, and 
had it locked up till I returned in 
the afternoon, but with no definite 
idea of anything beyond that. On 
the N. E. corner of the Lazaretto 
wall, facing the East Ness, was a 
doubie-leafed door leading into a 
small passage ; on the right side of 
which was the boatmen's house, and 
on the left the superintendent's office, 
both disused. There was a scuttle 
on the roof of this i)assage, leading 
to a small loft, which, to my soriow, 
I never had the oi)i)ortunity of rum- 
maging, to see whether it contained 
spy-glasses or such things. In the 
space between the two rooms 1 con- 
fined the dog. I took little interest 
in what passed at school that day, 
for my thoughts were given to the 
dog, and the pleasure I would have 
on getting home ; without a thought 
of what was due to the dog, or as if 
It had any rights. I was unconscious 
of having done a wrong to any one, 
or of having any unsettled troubles 
on hand ; and I fiercely demanded of 
my mother, " What have I been do- 
ing now ? " as she, without saying a 
word, began to give me what, in the 
language of the place, was called a 
" tabbering," immediately on my en- 
tering the house. " I'll teach you to 
put a nasty dog into my milk-house," 
was her re[)ly. I denied the charge, 
and stuck to my denial. 1 really 
was not aware of the boatmen's 
watch-house having been used for 
any i)uriK)se, as it must have been 
visited only during school hours; the 
real milk-house being attached to our 
dwelling-house. I said that " I did 
not put a nasty dog into your milk- 
house." She had no proof but ' hab- 
it and repute, and the nature of 
things," and insisted on a confes- 
sion ; which I at last made by sa) ing, 
" No, I did not put a nasty dog into 
your milk-Jionse ; I only put it into 



24 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



the lobbyT I never learned how the 
(log was released. It might have 
been by its howling, or on my mother 
going to the milk-house, when it 
would bolt out, leaving no doubt in 
her n)ind how it had got there. 

I had to be more cautious with my 
fiither in regard to a bull-dog to 
which I took a fancy. In a place 
like Inverkeithing, all kinds of chil- 
dren attending the ])arish school 
mixed with each other ; it was only 
in the houses, or under special cir- 
•'umstances, that class ajii^eared. I 
had little choice of companions, and 
had to take whatever came my way. 
My father said to me that he had no 
objection to me "strolling the coun- 
try with blackguard boys of my own 
age, or even with big blackguard 
boys ; but for me to stroll with a big 
blackguard boy and a bull-dog was 
what he would not permit." I 
thought his objection to tlie bull dog 
was unreasonable, and I disregarded 
his orders. It was a large whue and 
yellow dog, covered, like a black- 
guaid, with the remains of wounds 
leceived in many a battle; which 
added to my regard and respect for 
it. It seemed as if I were getting a 
share in the dog, without the trouble 
and expense of kee|Mng it. I thought 
that \Vill, whom it followed, and I 
and the dog were fit for anything. 
We had a stroll one Saturday after- 
noon, and, when tired, laid down on 
the grass, near the road leading to 
the Ferry, ftice downwards, and rest- 
ing our foreheads on our arms, but 
without going to sleep. One of my 
sisters, unknown to me, saw us when 
])assing, and reported the case to my 
father. I walked wiih Will on his 
way home for nearly lialf a mile be- 
yond the spot where I should have 
left him; and lingered there while ar- 
ranging for our stroll on the follow- 
ing Saturday, in another direction. 
On arriving at home 1 avoided my 
father's presence, but was sent for, 
and to my dismay charged with hav- 
ing been found "sleei)ing with the 
big blackguard boy and his bull-dog 



on the Ferry Hills." The charge 
was too true and too unexpected, 
and the danger too great, for me to 
raise a question as to our having 
been sleeping; and so I said noth- 
ing. I got oft" on the promise of 
dropping the dog's acquaintance for 
the future. I still kept up that with 
Will, against whom personally no ob- 
jection was taken ; but I did not 
venture to ask whether I might stroll 
with him and a dog that was not a 
bull-dog. 

I have already said that my father 
was reasonable in such matters, al- 
though I ditl not thefi think that his 
objection to the bull-dog was so. I 
might even characterize his govern- 
ment as that of an amiab'e, sensible, 
and constitutional desi)otism, from 
which there was no appeal. And 
this is what should be shown by ev- 
ery one having the respon^ibility of 
bringing up children, especially when 
they are of a certain age. 

I recollect, when 1 was about 
seven years old, being at home 
sick — possibly of scarlet fever — in 
which case I remember I was only 
one day in bed, so light was the at- 
tack. I was playing with a wooden 
hammer at the window on the stair 
leading to the toj) floor, where there 
were some i>ots of flowers, and 1 ac- 
cidentally broke a pane of glass. 
Under ordinary circumstances this 
was a capital offense, in conse- 
quence of the price of glass, when 
there was a heavy duty on it. I 
prudently went to bed shortly before 
my father'scoming honie; and when he 
approached the room in which I was 
I began to snore, while listening at- 
tentively to what might be said. In 
his allusion to n)y sickness my father 
said, "Poor fellow !" which was sat- 
isfactory enough ; but the trying i)art 
about the broken pane had yet to 
come. However, my mother 

brought it up under extenuating 
circumstances, which decided the 
question ; but I still kept snoring till 
my father shook me up to know how 
I felt. 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



My father's repeated injunction to 
us was, that when we did anything 
wrong we were to tell him ; which we 
were always ready enough to do 
when we had to meet the conse- 
quences from any one outside, I 
remember one occasion in particu- 
lar. The boy who occasionally 
herded the sheep near our house, to 
which I have alluded, left me late on 
a Saturday night, with a bright fire 
and a roast of ]5otatoes under it, 
which 1 ate, and dispensed with sup- 
per in consequence. He certainly 
had treated me with great kindness, 
yet for some unaccountable reason I 
destroyed everything, after having 
eaten the potatoes, that were all but 
ready when he left me. I had no 
sooner got to our house, which was 
at a very short distance, than I re- 
gretted what I had done, not merely 
on account of its baseness, but for 
the dread of the consequences ; and 
before going to bed I told my father 
everything. He then gave me a 
penny, which 1 was to take to the 
boy the fust thing I did on Monday 
morning ; and say that it was from 
him, and that 1 was sorry fur what 1 
had done. The boy — a big fellow, 
with a cast in one of his eyes — re- 
ceived the penny with pleasure ; and 
we contmued friends as if nothing 
jiad happened. Still, 1 would drive 
his sheep at night, and ride the big- 
gest of them that 1 could lay hold of 

\\\ regard to our intercourse with 
.other boys, my father's peremptory 
orders went no further than that we 
were not to annoy th^m, or be ag- 
gressors in any way. The rest, al- 
though never in any way expressed 
or implied, was left to ourselves ; so 
that if we gave " two for one " to 
those that annoyed us or proved ag- 
gressors, or hunted them out of the 
neighbourhood, we never* had a 
thought of trouble at home on that 
account. 

As may be easily imagined, we 
were all intensely loyal. The King 
was a being of whom I could {o\\w 
no conception beyond his being 



25 

something like the father of every- 
body, and the maker of all the 
money. \Vith this undefined and 
exalted idea of a king, it was with 
awe that I went to visit what pas>ed 
in the neighbourhood for the "kinir 
o' the leears," to see whether I could 
do him obeisance ; but what a shuck 
it gave to my feelings of reverence, 
and what a contempt it raised ag-.iinst 
such as admitted him to be their 
king! 

The subject of ghosts I never 
heard alluded to in our house. It 
must have been purposely kept from 
us. Even Halloween I never heard 
mentioned ; and the only idea we 
had of Hogmanay was some extra 
fancy bread on the evening of , the 
last day of the year. As a natural 
consequence, when I went to school 
I had never heard of ghosts, and was 
therefore sceptical of them. I re- 
member one boy with whom I had 
many a discussion on the subject. 
" Where are they to be found ? " 1 
said. " Well," said he, " there is one 
in the house at the East Ness," a 
building then vacant, and which aft- 
erwards became the Custom-house. 
This was coming rather near us, for 
the house was opi)osite ours, on the 
other side of the narrow entrance to 
the harbour, and had been (to a 
child) long uninhabited ; which had 
given rise to a rather uncanny feel- 
ing, for even to a grown-up ])erson 
the ideas associated with such a 
building are not pleasant. I pressed 
the boy with such questions as, 
" How did he get into the house ? 
where did he sleep ? and what did 
he have for bed-clothes? " And on 
asking him, " How could I see him ? " 
he said that there were two ways for 
calling uj) the " father of ghosts " — 
to go to sleep with the bare right 
arm left outside of the bed-clothes, 
and by throwing out of a byr? three 
" empty grapefuls " immediately aft- 
er dark. I tried both, without suc- 
cess — using the fork, alreaily men- 
tioned, with which my father dug a 
small row of potatoes in a field. 



26 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



And so far as I recollect, these were 
the only occasions on which the fork 
was used after we gave up keeping a 
cow, which is almost as far back as 
my memory can carry me. 

Alihough we in a general way de- 
spised ghosts, we were always afraid 
of more tangible beings. Thus I got 
up one day early in the morning to 
pull the gooseberries and currants 
(there was no other fruit) of Daniel 
Nicol before he and his wife were 
afoot ; but I got up too early, for it 
was before complete daylight, and 1 
boggled at something that looked 
like a person silting with his back 
against the corner of his house, wait- 
ing for me ; and I returned to my 
bed ; but when I rose at the usual 
time I went to see what had fright- 
ened me, and found that it was a 
stone placed there to keep carts off 
the house, and which I had often 
seen before. And so, as I have al- 
ready said, I visited tlie garden in 
broad daylight, well on in the fore- 
noon. 

What gave us the greatest concern 
in the way spoken of was the cele- 
brated Dr. Knox, of Burke and Hare 
notoriety, taking up his quarters with 
his family, in the autumn of 1835, in 
the old Cruicks' farmhouse. When 
we i)assed in that direction during 
the day we kept as far away from the 
house as possible ; and would not 
pass close to it unless we were ac- 
companied by a grown-up person. 
At night the presence of an old per- 
son would not completely do away 
with the fear which we entertained 
for hinj as we passed his door. His 
presence was regarded with great fa- 
vour by the farmers, whose crops 
were well protected in consequence 
from depredators ; and they regretted 
that he did not return the following 
year. Possibly some of them might 
have subscribed to pay for his lodg- 
ings, which could not have cost much 
for the old house occupied by him. 

Isolated as we lived, gossip was 
what we relished. We all contrib- 
uted our shares to the connnon stock 



as we came home ; and I have no 
doubt that I furnished a full share. 
We knew better than trouble our fa- 
ther with such matters, and seldom 
our mother. Those interested were 
ourselves and the maid. We were 
all very industrious in bringing gossip 
into the house, and as careful that 
nothing should leave it. But we 
found that there was a large leak 
somewhere, which turned out to be 
the boy next youngest to me ; who 
would stop ))eople and tell everything 
that took place in the house, and 
answer questions pu-t to him, in which 
respect he was a pump that was al- 
ways " on the fang." This habit 
annoyed us, and our only remedy 
was to say nothing in his hearing that 
we did not wish made public. I felt 
particularly aggravated when twitted 
by people with such remarks as that 
I was " an industrious laddie to get 
up at three o'clock in the morning to 
catch mice for the cat's breakf^ist" ; 
and that I was " a foolish laddie not 
to let the cat do that for herself" 
This habit became so notorious in a 
small place like Inverkeithing, that 
as we would pass through it on our 
way to and from school, the women 
would come out and look at the boy 
when accomiJanied by me. On one 
occasion a number of young women 
and half-grown girls accosted us, 
clapping their hands, when one of 
them, more demonstrative than the 
others, almost spat out tlie following : 
— " If you were brither o' mine I 
would tie a wisp o' strae about ye, 
and stap ye up the lum !" — alluding 
to the habit of putting a bag tilled 
with something in fire-places during 
the sununer, when no fires are used. 
The allusion to the cat and the 
mice for her breakfast came about in 
this way : — On getting home from 
school I found puss prostrate, as if 
her back had been broken, and not 
able even to crawl. Tiie explana- 
tion was that she had ariived from 
the direction of the farm house, " with 
the speed of lightning," and never 
rose after entering tlie house. On 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



27 



enquiry I found tliat the thrashing- 
null had been started while two cats 
were mousing there ; which resulted 
in a terrific yell on the part of one 
cat, while the farm one was not hurt. 
In the condition described our cat 
was an invalid that got the most 
careful nursing for about fourteen 
days before she recovered. She was 
reared, if not born, in the house, and 
had a name, and was, as it were, one 
of the family, that never quarrelled 
with another member of it ; and she 
had no dog to divide the affection 
with which we all regarded her, for a 
dog was not allowed on the premises. 
Always on coming home from school 
the first question was, " How is puss, 
and when will she be on her feet and 
at her work ? " She ultimately " got 
on her feet and at her w^ork," which 
accumulated wonderfully during the 
interval. If I had had sufficient re- 
flection [ would doubtless have caught 
mice for her " breakfast," or any other 
of her meals; but it was not neces- 
sary to have got up at three o'clock 
in the morning for that purpose. I 
had indeed got up early one day in 
connection with the mice ; which 
formed the foundation of the taunts 
referred to, I naturally felt hurt at 
that, and at the scandal of everything 
done at home being niade the town's 
talk ; but I had not the redress which 
a thrashing would give. It was our 
father's exclusive prerogative in such 
cases to ''do all the thrashing that 
was wanted"; but sometimes it was 
difficult to make out a charge in the 
way of a complaint, however offensive 
or provocative the circumstances 
might be. Hence I would sometimes 
take i)leasure in seeing my brother 
well thiashed by other boys, when he 
had thoroug'iily earned the ])unish- 
nient. At other times 1 would fright- 
en hini, which was sometimes better 
than beating him, and of which the 
following is a very fiiir illustration : — 
When in the middle of a young 
plantation, of about an acre, back of 
Port haiiig sands, and on the line of 
the small loch to the west of it, I, 



unobserved by my brother, withdrew 
to the outside of it, and raised the 
cry of " a weasel." I then started 
for home, and had got near the road 
that leads to the farm, when two gen- 
tlemen stopped me, and asked me 
impatiently what was the meaning of 
my running, and of the boy on the 
brow of the hill running and roaring 
so loudly as he did. The result was 
our going home together, and a good 
behaviour on the boy's part for some 
time. 

From the part of the Ferry Hills 
alluded to, and looking towards the 
west, on the same side of the firth, 
the ruins of Rosyth Castle present a 
striking object for contemplation. A 
little before the time I have spoken 
of, the view was rendered much more 
sombre by the appearance, towards 
th^ left and a little further uj) St. 
Margaret's Hope, of five or six quar- 
antine hulks, that is, large men-of- 
war liaving nothing but their lower 
masts and bow-sprits standing. I had 
often passed Rosyth Castl-^, but a lit- 
tle inland of it, while going to and 
from Limekilns, in the company of 
grown-up i)eople, Scotch boys then 
were not partial to visiting places 
that were strange to them, unless 
wiicn with others that were familiar 
with them. And I presume the same 
peculiarity still exists among them. 
They became suspicious of everybody 
and everything when strolling out of 
what might be called their districts. 
On one occasion I went with two 
boys to Rosyth hamlet, with the ob- 
ject of visiting, one of the hulks re- 
ferred to, in the event of her boat 
coming ashore, and in which we ex- 
pected to be taken to the vessel. 
We went along the beach, passing 
sloe-bushes that never bore sloes in 
my recollection, till we reached the 
east side of a small creek ; near the 
head of which was a small foundery, 
with a few men working in it. Almost 
immediately opposite was the ruined 
castle. We waited patiently for the 
coming of the boat, which did not 
make its appearance ; and being dis- 



28 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



appointed at that, we were anxious 
to pass the founclery, and visit the 
ruin. But do what we could, we 
could not muster up courage to pass 
the foundery ; and so we returned as 
we came. And yet there was no 
]:)ossible chance of any one interfer- 
ing with us in carrying out our wishes, 
which were those of children under 
ten years of age* 

Being disai)pointed in not being 
able to visit the ruined castle, owing 
to oiw timidity in regard to passing 
the foundery — the lion in the p^th — 
I made up another expedition with 
two boys. Profiting by experience, 
we went by the public road, ard 
reached the ruin west of the dreaded 
foundery. We got on the first floor, 
which was easily reached, but we did 
not try to ascend higher. It was the 
first ruin of the kind that I had vis- 
ited ; and what struck me was that 
the floors were of stone ; the one up 
to which we had got being covered 
by a deep bed of earth and sod. We 
. tlien started for the Lazaretto. The 
tide being remarkably high, we had 
to make a detour to the riiiht, to 



* The feePng alluded to runs through 
almost every aspect 'and relation of 
Scotch lile and character. I have never 
spoken to Scotch people of intelligence 
and candour, in America, that did not 
admit what I have said. They have at 
heart a feeling of having been cowed 
from their infancy upwards, in almost 
every relation of life, that makes them 
sensitive and reserved, suspicious and 
timid, however brave and determined 
they may be when they once " sail in." 
The feeling in question does not appear 
to them so plain while they live in Scot- 
land as it does after they leave it, and mix 
in a comnuiniiy of other people. They 
have not that confidence and assurance 
in their movements which would spring 
from its opposite — impudence and a lack 
of shame. In that respect I once said to 
a Scotch lady while on a visit to Amer- 
ica: — "You Scotch are blate bodies, that 
at first appear like sheep that have neither 
horns in their heads nor tongues in their 
mouths." " Aye," said she in reply, 
" but we soon show people that we have 
both horns in our heads and tongues in 
our mouths." 



reach the old houses where my father 
had appeared so suddenly, and given 
a herd-boy and myself so terrible a 
fright. At ordinary times we would 
have walked on the gravel-beach, and 
made use of stepj^ing-stones over a 
" bad bit." Reaching the old houses, 
we had to make another detour to 
get round the bight already spoken of. 
This little bight was the trying part in 
going to and from our house. Around 
the west side of it the quarantine 
boatmen had built an elevated road 
of about four feet in breadth, consist- 
ing of earth with a ragged stone fac- 
ing, to meet the case of high tides ; 
but it was seldom used, owmg to the 
spongy condition in which it gener- 
ally was. When the tide was not at 
its height, stepping-stones were used 
in its place ; not in a straight line 
from the old houses to our dwelling, 
but almost ]-)arallel with the raised 
]xath. After lingering about the little 
bay (for to a child eVen a distance 
of three feet in any direction has a 
meaning), and contemplating the 
very high tide which had filled it so 
completely, we started for the Lazar- 
etto. Nothing particularly attracted 
the other boy's notice there except 
that parts of the ])ier were covered 
by the scales of herrings that had 
lain there since the winter of 1831, 
nearly four years before. And from 
this it appeared that, in using the pier 
for cholera purposes, in the summer 
of 1832, the workmen had cleared 
away only such part of the refuse of 
the fish as was necessary for their 
purpose, and left the remainder to be 
disposed of by the elements. To be 
sure, the pier was a public one, and 
not under the exclusive jurisdiction 
of the Crown ; but I often thought 
that the boatmen, with so nnich idle 
time at their disposal, might have 
made things look decent, especially 
as the pier was a small one. But 
they apparently acted the j^art which 
seems to be characteristic of many 
Government establishments— to touch 
nothing that does not specially con- 
cern the service, and do no more 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



even in regard to that than is abso- 
lutely necessary. 

The occasion of my other expedi- 
tion to the neighbourhood of Rosyth 
is not very distinctly impressed on 
my metnory. I recollect coming 
from it, with three boys, walking 
four abreast — I on the right, a big 
boy next me, then a boy smaller than 
myself, and on the outside of the 
line, a boy nearly of my own size, 
and with whom 1 was on the best of 
terms. Taking advantage of the big 
boy's friendship for him, he began, 
without the slightest provocation, to 
lash me over the back of a bird, the 
name of which hai)pened to be my 
nickname. He would step out of 
tiie line, in advance (but always 
keeping (he big boy between us), 
and indulge in the most offensive 
gestures and language in regard to 
tlie bird. The other boys laughed 
and jeered, and enjoyed themselves 
amazingly ; and lett me no alterna- 
tive but to book everything for a 
future settlement. For it must be 
rememl)ered that almost every person 
living in Inverkeithing had a nick- 
name, and was frequently spoken 
of in public by no other. At the 
school every boy had such a 
name, and sometimes more than 
one ; and he was generally called by 
it, except that small boys would not 
venture to address big boys by these 
extra "given names" if they were 
more than ordinarily offensive. 
Sometimes the very mention of the 
nickname would immediately lead to 
a fight. As illustrative of what 1 
have said, I remember having been 
considerably frightened by some boys 
impatiently demanding who had done 
so and so, that lie might be beaten 
for it, and one calling out the name 
of the bird I have alluded to ; but 
the others, still impatiently, asked 

which it was. And the reply 

being , I felt relieved, for 

I was the other boy that had been 
christened after the bird ; the name 
of which was thus the nickname of 
two boys at least. 



29 

I was in no hurry for a settlement, 
like a person whose claim for princi- 
pal and accruing interest is well se- 
cured ; and I never troubled the 
debtor (who seems to have avoided 
me) till I met him accidentally be- 
tween the church and the school, on 
the oi)posite side of the street. The 
narrowness of the space and the con- 
figuration of the buildings may have 
produced the effect, or it may have 
been an illusion on my part, still 1 
could never divest myself of the idea 
that the blows on the culprit's ribs 
sounded like an echo somewhere. 
This much is certain, that a big boy 
called " Biscuits " (from his large 
cheeks of the colour of sailors' bis- 
cuits) called out from the opposite 
side of the street, that if I fought as 
well as I thrashed, I woukl do won- 
ders. Still standing with his back at 
the wall, and roaring for mercy while 
undergoing "the ])ublic administra- 
tion of law and justice," I said I 
would let him off if he would tell me 
of a nest. At this time it was early- 
spring, which led to the most diligent 
search for a bird's nest, as something 
to be boa<;ted of at the school by the 
fortunate finder of the first one. And. 
that reminds me that the debt si)oken 
of had been contracted about six 
months before ; so that a long for- 
bearance had been shown in the col- 
lection of what was generally "cash 
over the counter." The boy was a 
great " nester," and he immediately 
told me where I would find a nest ; 
describing everything so exactly that 
1 had no doubt, of his sincerity. 

The i)lace where he said the nest 
was to be found was a little knoll 
in the middle of a ploughed field. Jt 
was a spot to which 1 took a fancy 
merely on account of its appearance ; 
and I could never pass it without a 
pleasant feeling in regard to it for 
that reason alone. The year be- 
fore, when parsing the uj^per end of 
it, on niy way home from the farn), 
when it was all but dark, my eye 
caught the sight of a whin having one 
stem, and a round bunch at the top ; 



30 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



which led me to scriituiize it closely, 
when I found a nest of gray linnets, 
so full-grown that every one flew 
out of the nest, on my touching it, 
but one, which I caught. Daylight 
was too fi\r gone to allow me to 
search for the others where they had 
flown to. I felt satisfied with the 
one I had secured, in the belief that 
it was the baby of the family, the last 
hatched, which was always consid- 
ered a singer. Next morning I took 
it down to the sea-shore, where I 
thought I could try its powers of 
flight with safety, but I lost it by its 
getting into a hole in the west side of 
tlie pier ; which reminds me that the 
pier was not built at a great expense, 
for it was composed of stones not 
very closely laid together, without 
mortar, on the under part at least. 
On the lower end of the knoll was 
the whin bush in which I was told I 
would find the nest, which the boy 
gave me as a settlement of the bal- 
ance of my claim. He described 
the knoll very accurately, and the 
bush most minutely, even that it 
"hung over" the knoll. 1 had thor- 
oughly searched it a {^\v days before 
without finding a nest ; but one 
might have been commenced after 
that. On again searching the bush 
1 found that 1 hatl been imposed 
on. 

I cannot say that I felt displeased 
at the impromptu, circumstantial and 
successful trick by which the boy de- 
ceived me, while he had his back at 
the wall, and was in the hands of the 
Philistine. Still, I never spoke of it 
to him, for fear it might have opened 
the old sore, which I wished closed, 
as I really liked the boy, and had 
often strolled with him ; and it was 
to me a matter of surprise and grief 
that he should have so "wantonly 
and wickedly " provoked me in the 
way he did. We soon became 
friends as before, and strolled as we 
had done. His having a hound re- 
commended him greatly to me ; for it 
could not be said that his size and 
the kind of his dog came under the 



description of "boy and dog" for- 
bidden to me by my father. 

Shortly after this, I was with this 
boy and another boy, and the hound, 
within a few feet of the spot where I 
had been so greatly frightened by the 
first " swell" I met with, dressed as 
he was in a white hat, port-wine-col- 
oured coat, etc., but on the op|)opite 
side of the fence, and on another 
])roperty. The unwritten law be- 
tween farmers and their herds was 
that the herd could " pull " anything 
in a field he took a fancy to, and 
treat his friend, provided it was eaten 
on the si^ot. On this occasion, hav- 
ing no herd with us, we had each 
pulled a small turnip, at an early 
stage of its growth, when field turnips 
are palatable. The value of the three 
if they had arrived at maturity might 
not have exceeded a halfi^enny, or a 
penny at the most ; but to take such 
a liberty was against the most per- 
emptory orders at home. I was 
doubtless led to join in the action by 
the exam[)le of the two boys with me. 
1 was thoroughly conscious of having 
done wrong, and with that on my 
mind, and the vivid recollection of 
having been threatened with being 
sent to jail by the "swell" referred 
to, while almost on the same spot, 
nesting, I was in a condition to be 
influenced by a panic, which came 
from a quarter the most untx])ected. 
While we were busily eating the tur- 
nii)s, on our feet and with our backs 
against a stone d)'ke, the hound, 
close by us, but out of sight, set up a 
howl that I had never heard before ; 
at the sudden and horrible sound of 
which I instantly dropped the turnip 
at my feet, speechless. I saw the 
dog running in our direction and 
howling, apparently in i)ursuit of 
nothing ; but on the sharp turn of a 
furze-lined path, close to me, an ani- 
mal which it was chasing passed me 
so closely that I could have kicked 
it had I had a good conscience and 
self-possession to realize what it was; 
for the suddenness of the whole thing 
did not admit of an instant's reflec- 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



31 



tion. The chase had proceeded some 
distance i^ast us before I became 
aware that the dog had started a 
hare ; when my attention became 
rivetted to a black and white animal 
following what had the appearance 
of" a gray thread, as it pursued the 
hare uj) a hill, when both disappeared 
over the top of it. This ended what 
was to me a real panic. Still I 
l)icked uji and finished the turnip, 
which had dropped out of my hands, 
as if nothing had happened. 

This leads me to speak of a hare 
in the burial of which was the only 
occasion on which I recollect hav- 
ing seen my father with a spade in 
his hands, as 1' have already men- 
tioned. It had become the "rage" 
among the boys at the school to have 
cross-bows, with hares' ribs for the 
bows. I had noticed the boy who 
had so grossly insulted me, in refer- 
ence to my having my sister's old 
shoes on my feet, drop his bow in 
the school, when I picked it up, and 
put it under my jacket, as some satis- 
faction for the offense he had been 
guilty of. Some time after, he missed 
his bow, and made a great noise in 
regard to it ; when 1 quietly drew it 
from under my jacket, and innocently 
said to him, "Is this your gun?" 
" Yes," said he, " and wliere did you 
get it)" "On the floor," said I, 
and gave it to him. If hares had 
been in season I would have iiad no 
ditficulty in getting the ribs of them 
for the purpose mentioned ; but as 
they were not in season, I endeav- 
oured (industriously and foolishly, as 
the Inverkeithing wives would have 
said,) to fmd a dead hare, by hunting 
all over the Cruicks' peninsula for 
one. I sjient probably three or four 
hours on two successive long summer 
evenings searching every likely and 
unlikely place in which a dead hare 
might possibly be found, but without 
success. A few days afterwards, as 
I had reached about fifty yards from 
our gate, on my way to school, my 
eyes became rivetted on a hare 
asleep ; and I instantly stopped and 



contemplated the object for a minute 
or two. I softly advanced, and yet 
the hare moved not ; and still nearer, 
with the same effect. The result was 
that I got nj) to the hare and found 
her in her form dead and cold, pre- 
cisely as when she had gone to rest. 
Now, said I, I will have hares' ribs 
enough for a cross-bow; and returned 
with the animal, and put it insiile of 
a sow's house, then in disuse. On 
coming home from school my flither 
demanded of me what I had done 
with the dead hare, when I produced 
it ; and I told him, in answer to his 
question, what use I intended to 
make of it. He then entered the 
Lazaretto and buried the hare in my 
presence, saying, as he tramped the 
earth on it, " Now, sir, that hare lies 
there.'" '' Yes, sir," said I in reply. 
I felt greatly disapi)ointed ; but what 
my father did was right. I had the 
most crude ideas about getting the 
ribs of a dead hare ; for as I hod seen 
the carcass 'of a horse beliind the 
Lazaretto rot, after it had b-jen shot 
and skinned, so I thought I could 
get the ribs of the hare after it had 
become corrupted, and the ribs could 
be separated from the rest of the 
body. I have often thought since of 
the coincidence of finding the dead 
hare under the circumstances men- 
tioned ; saying nothing of what is 
doubtless a rarity in natural history 
— that of gelling a hare dead in pre- 
cisely the same position in which it 
had gone to rest in its form. 

My finding a halfi)enny in a hen- 
house was under more questionable 
circumstances. 1 ciossed 10 the East 
Ness, when the tide was out, on my 
way to school ; and as I passed the 
bridge that leads to the harbour vvynd 
I climbed up a narrow ladder that 
admitted chickens into their roost, 
which adjoined a large old-f.ishioned 
white house, on the right, and closer 
to the water. I had no apparent 
motive lor what I did ; it certainly 
was not to take eggs, which I would 
have scorned to do. However, I 
put in my hand at the hole through 



32 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



which the' chickens entered from the 
street, while the door of the roost 
was behind ; and 1 carefully scraped, 
with my hand, the landing place from 
which the fowls apparently hopped to 
their perches. To my astonishment 
I drew out a halfpenny, which I spent 
on ?. stick of " black man." I care- 
fully scraped the same i)lace, unsuc- 
cessfully, three or four days in suc- 
cession, to find another halfpenny ; 
which I would not have done had I 
known more of the " doctrine of 
averages " relating to " finding a half- 
penny in a hen-house " every day of 
the week, unless it might have hap- 
j)ened that another boy had used the 
place as a bank in which he ke]it his 
money. This happened a little be- 
fore nine o'clock in the morning, and 
alongside of the dwelling-house ; and 
it was the only hen-roost that I 
troubled in any way. 

As another illustration of what a 
child will sometimes do without any 
apparent motive, I may inention that 
I removed from the Lazaretto ''a 
small pot, with about an inch of 
brown paint, nearly as thick as initty, 
and a brush," already mentioned; and 
put it back in the same place the fol- 
lowing day. I had no intention of 
making any use of the paint-pot. 
The key of the quarantine premises 
was always at the disi)osal of any one 
of the family, and was daily used by 
me in connection with my pigeons 
and rabbits ; so that if I wanted the 
jiaint-pot 1 could have got it at any 
time. I i)ut it back for safety, and 
never thought anything further about 
it. 

The greatest fright I ever expe- 
rienced was connected with my sec- 
ond school-bag. With the first I in- 
nocently had had trouble enough. 
This bag (made of leather) was the 
only one that had appeared at the 
school, and therefore had attracted 
special notice. One of the big boys, 
unknown to me, i)rinted my name 
and address, in the largest-sized let- 
ters, on the outside of the bag, tak- 
ing the idea from the knapsacks of 



some soldiers that had been billeted 
in the town while on their march. 
And it appeals that I had gone home 
all the way from school with the bMg 
on my back, and the name outside. 
My father felt greatly provoked, and 
had the writing taken off by the shoe- 
maker who made the bag, and had 
my name written inside. Jn this 
condition I used it for a short time, 
and then I got another bag ; in con- 
nection with which I got the fright 
alluded to. 

The school was dismissed at four 
o'clock, and I could easily get home, 
even allowing for a little gossip, by 
half-past four. One day I did not 
reach home till about half-past eight, 
with no thought on my mind but 
what I should get to eat on my ar- 
rival. r>ut before I had even i)iit a 
foot on the outer step, the door, to 
my astonishment, was abruptly 
opened by my father (who seems to 
have scrutinized me while conn'ng up 
the walk) with the demand of " Your 
bag, sir? where's your bag.?" 1 iii- 
stmctively applied my hands to my 
flanks, and said. "At}- bag? A)'e, 
where's my bag ? " "Don't let uie 
see you come into my house witliout 
your bag," was my father's reply. I 
had nothing to do for it but to return 
on my tracks, and find the unfortu- 
nate satchel. I carefully thought of 
every place I had stoi)ped at, and 
scrutinized it unsuccessruily, till I 
reached a well on the beach, near the 
foundery, where I had lingered a good 
while with another boy, and where I 
felt all but certain that I had the 
bag. I made a diligent search for it 
in every direction, without success; 
and my heart sank within me as I 
thought of what I had heard : " Your 
bag, sir? where's your bag?" I had 
visited so many places before arriv- 
ing at the well, in the first instance, 
during the previous four hours, that 
1 could not think in what i)articulat- 
direction I should go in a furthei 
search ; and it never occurred to 
me that my name being on a well- 
known bag would lead to its return 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



33 



by the finder. I sat down on the 
well, the i)iclure of misery, when I 
thought of what I had been told : 
" Don't let me see you come into my 
house without your bag." But I did 
not weep, for I kept my tears for the 
•• wallcpng " which I would get on 
going home without the bag. As a 
temporal y relief to my feelings, I be- 
gan to think of the well, and how 1 
had seen it built, visiting it almost 
a' ways twice a day, on my way to 
and from school, as if I had been the 
inspector to see tiiat the job had not 
been scamped. It was indeed a sub- 
stantial ]Mece of work, of large, well- 
hewn hard white sandstone, and well 
puddled with clay, and oblong in 
shai)e, running in the direction of the 
shore l.ne. 

I h ve sa'd that I felt all but cer- 
tain that 1 had my bag when at the 
well ; but whether that was so or 
not, 1 passed round the harbour to 
the third or fourth house on the 
( rescenl to see the boy, with whom, 
a short time before, I had lingered at 
ihe well. He was three or four years 
older than myself, and had rich dark 
russet hair, a wonderfully freckled 
complexion, and black eyes of the 
greate>t brilliancy. He was a very 
popular boy, and I never knew of 
his having trouble with any one. I 
presume tliat, like other people there, 
especially boys, he had a nickname ; 
but 1 never heard it, unless it was 
the one he generally went by, that 
is, his surname curtailed. 

1 told him everything, and what I 
had done; and he satisfied me that 1 
hail the bag on my back at the well 
when I left him, which did not help me. 
1 begged him to return with me to the 
well, which he readily did with the 
greatest kindness and symjiathy, al- 
though he said that he did not see 
what use he could be to me there. 
"But only come," said I, with no 
idea of any assistance he could be to 
me. We then returned to the well, 
and searched unsuccessfully in every 
direction. By this time it was nearly 
dark, with not a creature moving ; 



still, we lingered at the well in abso- 
lute silence ; I averse to start for 
home without the bag, and he as un- 
willing to leave me in my forlorn and 
wretched state. The silence was 
broken, and our att^-ntion arrested, 
by a boy of my own size approaching 
from the direction of the manse gar- 
den, with a long step and at a rapid 
pace. " Hollo, what have you got 
there ? " said my friend to the boy as 
he observed something like a string 
hanging a little down from under l.is 
buttoned jacket, just as he was pass- 
ing us. The result was that the boy 
approached, and unbuttoned his 
jacket, showing my bag. which he 
had found at the back of the hedge 
between the well and the manse gar- 
den, about seventy yards from where 
we stood. "Yes," said I, "I put it 
down there before climbing up to a 
blackbird's nest, in which I found 
nothing." The appearance of the 
bag was the end of all trouble, for I 
knew that there w.^uld be no re- 
proaches when I got home. My 
only and iuunediate thought was 
about what I would find to fill my 
little crop at that time of night, f 
did not enter the house with the va- 
pouring air of, " My bag sir? why, 
there's my bag !" but I dutifully pro- 
duced it, with an account of where 
and how I had found it ; when I re- 

! ceived advice to be more careful, and 
to come home earlier, for the future 
I then ])roceeded to my dinner and 
supper rolled into one, and went to 
bed absolutely happy. 

I felt extremely gratefiil to the boy 

I mentioned. The last time I remem- 
ber seemg him was when he came 
across to our place, on a Saturday 
afternoon, in the summer of 1835, 
when the tide was out. We then 
sat talking about various matters by 
the hedge at the bottom of our gar- 
den (so-called), when my eldest sis- 
ter was practising her piano lessons, 
on the ui)per floor,, with the windows 
up. 

I have mentioned all the troubles 
which L can. remember having had 



34 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



at home. There were doubtless 
otiiers, of a minor importance, or 
])resenting no saHent points by which 
they could be recollected. In going 
to and from church my place was to 
walk alongside of my mother, which, 
however, did not prevent me from 
noticing anything that I could exam- 
ine on the following day. For a 
good part of the distance (about half 
a mile) between our house and the 
high-road, we had to walk Indian 
file, along the narrow paths, or on 
the stepping-stones on parts of the 
beach, when I would have to take 
the adv.'ince. On one occasion, 
when going up a narrow and 
crooked path from the valley (which 
an athlete could almost have leaped 
over) to the high ground (which rose 
about twelve feet), I had almost a 
fight with my mother. I was in ad- 
vance, and had noticed a foggie-bee 
about to alight, the meaning of which 
I well understood. I instantly 
stopped and, making way for the 
others to pass, turned round to 
see the exact spot where the bee 
would disappear, when the trouble 
began. I was seized by the arm, 
and after 'some resistance dragged 
along, while looking behind ; but I 
managed to see the bee get under 
the leaf of a thistle. I dwelt on the 
circumstance while at church, and 
caiefully noticed the leaf of the thistle, 
without daring to touch it, on my re- 
turn home. On Monday morning I 
discovered the nest which I felt sure 
was . there. — When very young I 
brought into the house the nest of a 
wren i.:i which was a large ])rogeny, 
vwhen my mother, with an expression 
•of pain which I could never forget, 
told me to place it where 1 had found 
£t ; which 1 did. 

Oi)posite the entrance to the Laz- 
aretto was a well, the roof of which 
■consisted of stone slabs, sloping to 
the ground in the direction of the 
town ; while its upright entrance faced 
east. It was so near the sea that 
the water would become unfit for use 
,by occasjoiial very high tides, when 



the well would have to be emptied. 
This was ai)i)arently the grounds of 
an action raised by the town against 
the person who bought the property 
from the Government, alleging that the 
well was within high-water mark. The 
real reason seems to have been en- 
mity between the parties. One of 
the old boatmen told me afterwards 
that he had been cited as a witness 
in the action, on the part of the pro- 
prietor, when I asked him what he 
knew about the well ; and he said 
that he ought to know something 
about it, for that he had " bigged " 
it. He said that he had tried to find 
the spring inside of the Lazaretto 
wall, but failed. I always understood 
that the town was beaten in the ac- 
tion, which it well deserved to be, 
for the well was built by the Crown, 
and was the only one on or near the 
premises ; and did not, in any reason- 
able sense of the woril, come under 
the phrase, " within high-water mark." 
It was always kept locked, a|)parently 
to prevent the children from falling 
into it ; and also for the reason that, 
isolated as we lived, people would 
sometimes take liberties with it. 'i'hus 
I remember a sailor washing his 
feet in it, which caused no small in- 
dignation to all about the place. 
This was the well out of which my 
father drew the water to throw over 
Daniel Nicol's cow, as Lizzie or 
Pussie Nicol raced it backwards and 
forwards, to cure it of the effects of 
it having eaten too freely of wet 
clover, as I have already mentioned. 
Some of my earliest and most pleas- 
ant recollections are connected with 
this well. 

The next well, to the we t, was at 
the bottom of a hollow (called " the 
valley"), and near the sea ; the one 
in which Giles regarded frogs with 
such aversion, as 1 have stated. But 
this well had always a wretched ap- 
pearance. A few yards west of that 
was " Pinkie," to which I have al- 
ready made allusion. The boatman 
mentioned said that he was also at 
the building of "Pinkie," and that 



REMIXISCEXCES OF IXVERKEITHING. 



35 



he tried to find the sjiring further up | four wretched old pines at the Ferr\-; 



the hill. This well was very small, 
but jirettily built ; and was so sur- 
rounded by whins that it was hardly 
observable until search was made for 
the source of the pool out of which 
stock were watered. Thi? pool was 
merely a hollow dug out, while nature 
did the rest, giving it a fringe and 
surroundings, as if the hand of man 
had not been there. A little further 
west, and at the bottom of the land 
of the Cruicks' farm, was a well, all 
but covered by a flat roof on a level 
Avith the ground, that supplied the 
old farm-house and formerly a small 
row of houses near the beach (al- 
ready referred to), which were in 
ruins in my time, but which had con- 
sisted of three distinct apartments, 
with as many entrances. 

Pini<ie well is connected in my 
memory with many associations. The 



recent plantation on the brow of 
the village ; about an acre of young 
wood above Port Laing sands, al- 
ready referred to ; about a dozen of 
scraggy trees and bushes scattered 
over the rest of the district ; and a few 
small hawthorns in two small hedges. 

I do not remember when I first 
went to school, or any of the circum- 
stances connected with it. I pre- 
sume it must have been in tlie spring 
or summer of 1831, for when the 
school was dismissed in 1832, in con- 
sequence of the cholera, 1 was con- 
scious of having been for some time 
at it. I also remember that previ- 
ously, when the vacation had come 
round, I was jiacked oft" to a school 
kept by two sisters — one much young- 
er than the other, and called '• wasp- 
waisted ." in consecpience of 



tight lacing. This school was oppo- 
well, as I have said, was in itself at- { site to the church and parish school, 

but nearest the church, and up a 
Hight of stone steps, in the open air, 
that led to an old-fashioned house on 
the left ; while there was a modern one 
on the riglU. The school-room was 
three or four stejis up into the old 
house,to the left, with the window to the 
street, above the spot where I caught 
the culprit mentioned. I thought it 
hard to be sent to this school after 
the children of the other one had 
been dismissed to play ; and I was 
either removed or I left because the 
vacation for this one had also come 
round. I am sure that my industry 
for learning was not tlie cause of my 
being kept so closely at school ; it 
might have been to get rid of me at 
home ; but of doing anything deserv- 
ing of tliat, I was never conscious. 

I might have seen the play-ground 
of the school before going to it ; but 
the great probability is that I liid not, 
or did not remember it. When I 
first saw the play-groimd, that part of 
it on the upper end, of a triangular 
form, was neatly laid out in shrubs, 
all around the wall and railing, with a 
triangular walk separating these shrubs 
from some in the centre of the ground. 



tractive. Its water was used in the 
baptism of all our family ; the font 
being a milk-bowl of little more than 
ordinary ware, but of a handsome 
form, and pretti!y decorated 111 blue, 
with a woman milking a cow at the 
bottom, of superior design and exe- 
cution. Whenever our own well was 
injured by the sea entering it, we al- 
ways had recourse to "Pinkie"; but 
it was too far oft" for ordinary pur- 
poses, superior as the water was. 
When going to school I would fill a 
pitcher at "Pinkie" for the use of 
my father at the Custom-house. There 
was another interest connected with 
this well, that it was the only running 
si>ring on the peninsula that I knew 
of. If there was another, it must 
have been between St. Margaret's 
Point on the west and the Ferry on 
the east ; but I do not think that 
there was a running spring there. 

There was a good show of trees 
inside of the Lazaretto wall, as well 
as on the ground adjoining, where 
there was also a profuse growth of 
ivy. These attracted the birds, for 
they had no other foliage on the pe- 
ninsula to resort to, except three or 



36 



REMINISCENCES OF IN VERA'EI THING. 



In front of the end window was a 
senn-circular clump of shrubs. There 
were also trees (all of one kind) 
around the sides of this part of the 
ground, and in front of the school, 
imd at least one (I think two) behind 
v. But very soon everything disap- 
peared but the trees, of which the 
icacher took great care. 

'Jhe teacher was about thirty-one 
yeafs old when I went to the school, 
and thirty-five when I left it. He 
was a licentiate of the church, teach- 
ing a school till he could find a 
charge, which he did a few years after 
the oi.ihlishnient of the Free Church. 
When 1 was at iiis school J remem- 
ber hearing him preach at Dalgetv, 
the adjoining i)arish, to the east. He 
was always styled " The Reverend," 
and he was very particular to let it 
be uncierstood that he was a "Preach- 
er of the Word." He was unmarried, 
and had his sister as housekeeper. 
In his person he was short and a lit- 
tle i)ursy, but gentlemanly, and had 
dark (but not black) hair and eyes. 
There were four gay people in Inver- 
keithing at this time : the teacher ; a 
rather ujipish and extravagant but 
j)opular farmer of njiddle age (from 
the same place in Fife as the teach- 
er) ; a tall, fine-looking, fair and 
Horid, and gallant young doctor, who 
married a widow with four well grown- 
up children, and a good annuity, 
which " went out at the door as the 
doctor came in " ; and the fashiona- 
ble and handsome young wife of a 
manufacturer, who was advanced in 
years, and had to be drawn about in 
a hand-coach. Among these four 
there was nothing but gayety — eating 
and drinking and singing, music and 
dancing and card-playing, with gnis- 
itig in its season. 

The teacher had not reached the 
goal of his aspiration — a church, and 
in the meantime had become a do- 
minie all over. At his own table he 
once used language to his brother 
that would have caused an exi)lobioii 
had not my father (who was the- only 
other present, and about twenty years 



his senior) quickly said, "Oh, never 
mind your brother ; he thinks that 
we are only two of his bairns he is 
speaking to " ; and adroitly turned 
the conversation into another chan- 
nel. He was asked next day by the 
dominie how he could ha\e spoken 
of hini in the way he did ; when he 
replied, that it was to preserve the 
peace when an insult (however unin- 
tentional) had been shown to his 
brother, in his own house. And there 
the matter ended. His unsatisfied 
ambition as to a church, and his gay 
and more or less expensive habits, 
doubtless made him occasionally ca- 
pricious in his temper while in school; 
but he was never cruel or partial in 
his discipline. In school he was 
obeyed absolutely, not so nnich from 
a fear of punishment as from the re- 
sjiect in which he was held by his 
scholars, who would never think of 
making disparaging remarks in regard 
to him anywhere. And this feeling 
prevented harshness or cruelty. His 
being a standing candidate for a 
church doubtless threw around him 
an atmosphere which children were 
not capable of understanding, how- 
ever much they might have been in- 
fluenced by it. In society he was 
pleasant and even jocular, yet with a 
dignity that was unquestionable; but 
he could never throw off the dominie 
completely while following the call- 
ing of one. He was considered a 
good Greek and Latin scholar, and 
in every sense of the word an excel- 
lent teacher; and the mention of his 
name was always responded to with 
respect, and at least an absence of 
ill-feeling on the part of those who 
did not sympathize with his convivial 
habits, which, however, did not ex- 
ceed those of thoroughly respectable 
people in the place. In 1835 he 
began to teach French, which he 
must have learned without the assist- 
ance of others, for he sadly mangled 
the pronunciation of the words, as 1 
afterwards experienced. 

I dare say I was the subject of his 
discipline, in one form or other, more 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



37 



than most of the boys at the school ; 
yet I can recall but two instances of 
it, towards the time when 1 left it. 
One day I was casting the rays of 
the sun through the school-room, by 
means of a piece of glass, when I 
was called ui> and told to " hold out 
my hand." On another occasion I 
was raising and letting fall the palms 
of my hands on my ears, for the pe- 
culiar sound it yielded by the hum of 
the school, when I was called up for 
a similar purpose. One day he was 
visiting our house, when I ran and 
hid myself from him, merely through 
sheepisliness, owing to our seldom 
seeing strangers at home, and I did 
not present myself; in consequence 
of which I felt rather uneasy as to the 
morrow. And the trouble came, for 
he called me, and as I caught his 
eye he tossed his tawse into the 
middle of the floor ; the meaning of 
which I well knew. On receiving 
these from me, he proceeded witii 
his accusation and punishment before 
I could oi)cn my mouth, althougi I 
had nothing to say in my defense. 
" What made you run away from me 
when 1 was at your father's last night ? 
Hold up your hand, sir!" This I 
considered "abusing his office," but 
I entertained no hard feelings in 
conseipience. The only case that I 
remember of what might be consid- 
ered cruelty, or the appearance of it, 
was that of a boy wiiom he made to 
stand on one foot ; but he was such 
an odd-looking boy, and had such 
strange ways, that any one naturally 
felt a disposition to tease him. The 
day before Lammas Fair, in August, 
1835, he gave me, for being at the 
top of the class, a sixpence, out of 
wiiich I was to give a penny to *' the 
girl next me." This phrase stuck in 
my memory, from which I conclude 
(although I do not remember it as a 
fact) that in some of the classes at 
least the boys and girls took their 
])laces, although the girls occupied 
the end of tlie school to the left as it 
was entered. It was a pity the 
teacher did not give me the whole 



sixpence, and the girl a penny, or 
that some one had not " lent me a 
penny" for the occasion; for when 
the sixpence was broken, half of the 
remaining fivepence was spent before 
I got home, late at night. There 
was a "go-round" on the High Street, 
and in anticipation of the honse-race 
on the following day, 1 rode three 
heats on horseback, costing i^d. ; 
another penny 1 spent on sometlimg 
else, and I had only 2jd. for the 
fair. 

On one occasion a son of his bo- 
som friend the farmer, another boy 
whose father I think worked in a 
mill, and 1 were ordered to the i)orch. 
Being " sent to the ])orch " was a 
capual punishment. We were three 
boys that were in the same class, and 
hardly ever apart. We had doubt- 
less been doing something, but I 
do not remember what it was. " To 
the porch, and lock the outer door, 
and make ready," was the order, 
which we instantly obeyed, to the 
astonishment and horror of the whole 
school. This was a ininishment I 
never saw administered, or knew of 
any one who had been the subject of 
it. It was at least a tradition which 
most of the scholars understood ; and 
it served an excellent purpose. We 
entered the i)orch, which was the 
ground floor of the little tower in 
tront of the school. Feeling instinct- 
ively that somethmg had to be done, 
and that innnediately, 1 locked the 
only outer door in use, which added 
to the distress of the other boys, who, 
wee|)ing bitterly, asked me, " What 
does he want us to do ? " 1 explained 
matters, and, showing an example, 
urged them to do their duty, as we 
would get off all the easier. 1 had 
seen how the other scholars looked 
as they saw us going to the porch ; 
but 1 could only imagine how they 
felt as they saw the teacher follow, 
tawse in hand, shortly afterwards, i 
dare say they expected to hear a 
noise somethmg like the killing of 
pigs as the teacher closed the school- 
door which led to the I'orch. liut he 



38 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



found us so abjectly submissive, and 
such weeping on the part of the other 
boys, and such higubrious appearance 
of it on mine, that he said he would 
forgive us that time ; and told us to 
follow him as soon as we could into 
the school. We were miserable ur- 
chins, between eight and nine years 
old at the most; not much better than 
three mice in the presence of a cat. 
We re-entered the school, not as he- 
roes, but pardoned criminals, and 
slunk away to our seats. We were 
all questioned by the other boys, but 
it was only myself that had much to 
say on the subject ; the other boys 
being averse to tell anything. I told 
everything, and dwelt on the other 
boys weeping so bitterly. 

I always looked upon this event 
as a piece of strategy on the i)art of 
the teacher to maintain the discipline 
of one who was " not to be tritied 
with"; and it certainly had that ef- 
fect. As I have said, I do not re- 



a great rearer ; and it was always a 
subject of interest to see him mount 
it, and master the most troublesome 
creature he had under his charge. 

This was the parish school, and 
the best in the place. It was at- 
tended by the children of every kind 
of i)eoi)le in or near the town. As I 
have already said, there were no dis- 
tinctions observed among the chil- 
dren in the school, or in ordinary 
out-door associations, although these 
would still show themselves on occa- 
sions. Thus when a gardener to a 
nobleman and his wife — both of 
them very presentable people in 
their way — brought their first "hope- 
ful" to the school, some of the other 
children ungraciously exclaimed, 
" What right has a gardener's son to 
be dressed in that way ? " alluding 
to a little boy, pretty in apjiearance, 
and as prettily dressed. Sometimes 
the farmer's son would give the pi- 
lot's son a bloody nose; and again 



member what was the occasion of it ; j the quarryman's son would do the 
but I am certain that none of us had I same to the farmer's son, or "send 



done anything deserving of being 
'• sent to the porch." The fact of 
two' of the boys being the children 
of his most intimate friends, doubtless 
had some share in the strategy ])rac- 
tised, as if it were to show that there 
would be no mercy for the children 
of poorer parents if they made them- 
selves amenable to his discipline. 

Tiie teacher, as was the rule in 
parish schools, had a free iiouse and 
" coal and candle," and a fixed sal- 
ary, and was allowed to charge fees. 
'J'he fees were dispensed with on the 
part of a few poor boys, who gave 
the teacher services in lieu thereof, 
such as were connected with his gar- 
den and pony. On one occasion I 
had remained with three of these 
boys to assist in carrying in his hay, 
when I was missed and sent for. 1 
was a little troubled for the conse- 
quences, but on entering the school 
1 was merely sent to my seat, with 
the remark, that when he wished me 
to carry in his hay he would ask me 
to do it. He had a pony which was 



him home to his mother with his 
eyes beautifully coloured." Prob- 
ably half of the boys attending the 
school went barefooted during the 
summer, and the other half without 
stockings, or what was called "slip- 
shod." Meeting my father one day 
with my shoes in my hand, he sharply 
told me to put them on, saying that 
1 might go barefooted when he could 
not aflfcrd me shoes. Dispensing 
with stockings during the summer 
was convenient for crossing the nar- 
row entrance of the harbour at low 
water, in going to or returning from 
school, instead of taking the much 
longer way around the bay, towards 
the west. I had only to take off my 
shoes when passing the shallow 
channel, and put them on after ar- 
riving at the other side. About half 
of the boys had pocket-handker- 
chiefs ; the rest used their jacket- 
sleeves. Several had neither caps 
nor shoes during the sununer, just as 
if they had been colts. 

1 was told at home that for the 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



first }-ear I attended scliool I was 
never out of hot water with the other 
boys ; which was doubtless an exag- 
geration. Still, there might have 
been some truth in what was said, 
for most of such affairs would i^re- 
sent no salient points by which they 
could be remembered. I recollect 
having been badly cut up by a 
butcher bo\-, in his shirt-sleeves and 
with a basket on his arm. It was 
opposite the first house (a little old- 
fashioned cottage) in the town on 
che left on entering it from the south. 
It was in going to school that made 
the encounter so disagreeable; had it 
been when I was returning, I could 
have attended to myself. As it was, 
I was much indebted to an oldish 
man and his wife coming out of the 
cottage and making me presentable 
for the school ; but I would have 
felt much more so had they taken 
me into the house, and used some 
kind of crockery, rather than carried 
a bucket of water to me in the mid- 
dle of the road. From their son I 
got a geranium, which went by his 
name as long as it lived. 

Opposite the back of the school 
resided the father of a celebrated 
missionary. My father's desk in the 
Custom-house was immediately op- 
I)osite his. He dwelt at first on the 
top floor of a red-tiled house, to 
which he had access by an outside 
stair ; but he afterwards built a one- 
storied house adjoining. No doubt 
the family must have been many 
times annoyed by the boys, for that 
is unavoidable when people live so 
near a public school, however great 
the care to the contrary. Shortly 
after taking up their residence in the 
new building, a stone was thrown 
through one of its windows ; which, 
as I have already said, was a capital 
offense. No sooner was the sound 
of the breakage heard than the boys 
instinctively ceased from their play, 
and stared at the door of the house 
to see who would issue from it. And 
out came the mistress of the fan)ily, 
with the fierce demand as to who 



39 

threw the stone. One boy said, 
"The boy Simi)son." She instantly 
replied, with great sharjiness, " Mr. 
Simson's son of the Ness?" (refer- 
ring to me). " No," said another 
boy, " the boy Simi)son of the Shore"; 
when she retreated abruptly into the 
house, and slaunned the door after 
her. This was a jMece of gossip, to 
the relating of which I found every 
one at home, even including my fa- 
ther, a ready listener. I believe 1 
did justice to it when I compared 
the lady to a "raging bear" in com- 
ing to the door, and returning so 
abruptly after her question had been 
answered. "Ah ! " said my mother, 
with a smile, " she thought she hatl 
my laddie in a snapper." I wouKl 
indeed have been in a "snapper" 
had I thrown the unlucky stone. 

The minister of the parish was a 
large, heavily-built and aged man 
that had been settled there for nearly 
fifty years. His predecessor filled 
the charge for nearly the same 
length of time. I]oth being what 
were called " Moderates," it was said 
that the parish had "lain in weeds" 
for a century. 1 recollect a squab- 
ble between him and his heruors 
about the canopy of his i)ulpit not 
being safe, and his refusing to preach 
till it was made secure. The church 
was in consequence closed for one 
Sunday at least ; on which occasion 
1 think it was that the schoolmaster 
preached at Dalgety, as mentioned, 
when a good many of the parishion- 
ers went to hear hin). The canopy 
was then propped up by unpiinied 
wooden beams, and afterwards taken 
down. 1 remember that the pre- 
centor showed a wonderfully big 
mouth when ho sang. On one oc- 
casion I saw him asleep when he 
was wanted to begin the tune ; and 
the clergynian doing his be^t to 
awaken iiim by reaching down to 
him widi his hand, but failing in that 
he lengthened his reach by adding 
his psalm-book. Feeling that on his 
head, the precentor started up in as- 
tonishment, and took a little time in 



40 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



assuming his ])lace in the services. 
The , minister's son, who went to 
India as a chemist, used to go about 
botanizing on the peninsula and in 
the neighbourhood. He wrote the 
scientific part of his father's descrip- 
tion of the parish for the Statistical 
Account of Scotland. He was a tall 
man (the length mostly in the legs), 
with long daik hair, and a sharp nose, 
with glasses on it. He generally 
carried a large spy-glass on his expe- 
ditions. On going to school I no- 
ticed the glass, and directed my 
youngest sister's attention to it. She 
instantly sprang for it, and reached 
it before me ; and took it into the 
manse, while I waited outside to 
share the leward which we expected 
in the form of gooseberries, that 
were plentifid in the garden. She 
got a handsome reward in gooseber- 
ries, and gave the half of them to a 
girl with her, whom we did not meet 
till after finrling the glass ; and I got 
nothing, being " out " with her at the 
time. 

Having said that the parish had 
been in charge of " Moderates" for 
nearly a century, it followed that the 
religious instruction of the people 
became a home matter. That in 
our house was mainly in the hands 
of our mother. I still retain the im- 
jjression left on my mind by her 
leaching. It nianifested itself, in a 
striking and indelible degree, on the 
occasion of the death of both grand- 
mothers, in the spring of 1835, as I 
was on my way home from school, 
and was passing from the chemical 
works towards the ruined houses men- 
tioned, during a very high tide, and 
as 1 arrived opposite a hawthorn 
bush inside of the stone fence there. 

The Reverend Ebenezer Brown 
was then living at Inverkeithing. He 
was held in such veneration that even 
the chiUlren would advance near to 
the middle of the road and take off 
their caps to him as he passed. I 
once did that, when the person driv- 
ing him — from whom different things 
could have been expected — laughed 



at me ; and I never repeated the sal- 
utation. This did not jjrevent me 
from admiring his manse, or rather 
what was in front of it, for it had a 
brier-like growth almost covering the 
whole of it, nearly packed with spar- 
rows' nests, which were plain to the 
eye — a pretty sight to almost any 
child. There were many such under 
the eaves of the Lazaretto, and in 
the ivy outside, but they were hidden 
from view. 

In so small a place as Inverkeith- 
ing there were certain local offices of 
a social nature which my father could 
not well escajje from filling, when 
called ujion to do it, although he had 
no taste for the work. A regard for 
his family also doubtless led him to 
com])ly with the popular request. 
Thus he was instrumental in bringing 
to the i)lace a dancing-master, who 
was assisted by his sons ; one of 
them a dancing-master and fiddler, 
and the other a " siilor and fiddler," 
who furnished the music. They were 
very successful and became well liked; 
but unfortunately the old man at the 
end of the term ran away with the 
wife of the man in whose house they 
had lodged ; and the sons would never 
again show their faces in the town. 
They had also classes in the neigh- 
bourhood; Limekilns, about four miles 
off, being one of them. On visiting 
an uncle of my father, at that place, 
with my mother, we were told that 
the dancing-master was coming to 
tea ; and to our suri)rise he turned 
out to be the " sailor and fiddler " 
mentioned. As he was going in our 
direction, he could not do less than 
convoy us, and he gave my mother 
his arm ; with which I was highly 
satisfied, as I walked alongside of 
them. But there was a terrible ex- 
plosion after we reached home, for 
which I was probably to blame. 
"That wife of his should take the 
arm of a dancing-master — of a danc- 
ing-master's fiddler ! " The circum- 
stances which I have stated imme- 
diately allayed the trouble. 

The dancing-master for the follow- 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING, 



41 



ing year (1835), whose school I at- 
tended, was a fine-looking man ; 
young, tall, rather slender but hand- 
some, with fine black curly hair and 
bushy whiskers, and a "white choker." 
1 think he was an Englishman, which 
impression was confirmed by his send- 
ing his scholars to his lodgings (op- 
])osite the woman's school which I 
once attended) for porter, which 
would ai)pear in a white jug of good 
size and well filled. He certainly 
had a difiiculty in understanding 
much of wliat some of his scholars 
said ; none of whom indeed could 
speak English, however well they 
could read and understand it. I re- 
collect one particular instance, when 
he asked a girl — almost too small to 
have been a scholar — what her name 
was ; and she replied, " Aggy Sandy." 
" What does she say ? " was his blank 
appeal to another girl, after twice 
asking the question. " Agnes Alex- 
ander, sir." " Oh, yes," he replied, 
"Agries Alexander." This man could 
not have been a Scotchman, although 
his name was common enough in 
Scotland. 

The night before the ball, which 
was to close the dancing-?chool, the 
boy who sneered so bitterly at me for 
having my sister's old shoes on my 
feet, asked me to bring, in the morn- 
ing, all the flowers 1 could get at 
home to decoiate the rc)om for the 
occasion. A request from a boy like 
him was in reality a command ; and 
it caused me some concern, for we 
■had no flowers at home that I could 
fall back on. As I have already 
mentioned this boy twice, I will de- 
scribe him. He was three, if not 
four, years older than myself. His 
usual dress was dark corduroy trou- 
sers, blue cloth jacket, with sailor's 
pockets outside, blue cloth cap, and 
loose black silk handkerchief under a 
folded-over collar. Figure not straight; 
features not refined, but ngreeable ; 
eyes light blue ; hair tow-like, and a 
little curly ; and complexion of the 
same shade as the hair, with no red 
in it, but healthy. He was restless 



in his movements, as if he would 
break away, or would sway from side 
to side, anything, in short, but stand 
still ; and he had a peculiar way of 
winking his eyes, and spitting, almost 
frothing, out his words, which would 
come thick and close together. He 
was a good scholar, and an excellent 
hand at mental arithmetic ; and I. is 
good-nature was only exceeded by 
his habit of sneering. His running 
for the teacher's porter was in keep- 
ing with his request for flowers to 
decorate his school ; for he must be 
captain or master of ceremonies on 
all the occasions he could make him- 
self such. 

I have said that we had no flowers 
at home for the purpose wanted. 
Heliind the house there was a sniall 
flower-bed, of about fifteen feet by 
four, cultivated by my eldest sister, 
but it contained nothing tiiat would 
suit. The only other tiling was a 
honey-suckle hanging from a tree. 
The flowers inside of the Eazarettu 
wall were limited to crocuses and 
lilies, which we used to admire as 
they came out in the spring, but they 
had long since disappeared. On 
thinking over the subject on my way 
home, I renieinbered that there was 
a rose-bush, the last remains of a 
garden, behind the old Cruicks' farm- 
house, which was then unoccupied ; 
and on my return in the mornmg I 
picked three or four very fine white 
roses, which, to my relief, were ac- 
cepted by " the captain and master 
of ceren)onies," as my contriijution 
to the decoration, although I did not 
tell him where 1 got them. And 
that reminds me that the ball came 
off pretty e-irly in the season, or that 
Dr. Knox did not take up his quar- 
ters in the old house till pretty late, 
or that there was a very short interval 
between the two; for 1 certainly did 
not pick the roses while Jie was there ; 
his name being a sufiicient i)rotection 
for anything in his neighbourhood. 

After a few dances, three of the 
smallest boys at the school, including 
myself (who was the smallest of all), 



42 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



asked to go out ; and on going down 
stairs we noticed that the floor below 
the ball-room was filled witli small 
tables, all of which seemed occupied 
by men drinking toddy, while there 
was not a man to be seen above. We 
lingered at the door, and were called 
in and treated. Having a day or two 
before, while at the horse-race, ad- 
mired the jockey and envied his 
horse as he poured brandy down its 
throat after a heat, 1 suppose I must 
have emptied a glass of toddy in the 
same manner. Shortly after getting 
into the open air we began, in a 
small way, and in the immediate 
neighbourhood, to " raise the town," 
when the town-officer made his ap- 
pearance from the lowest floor of the 
building in which the drmking and 
dancing were going on. I was taken 
up-stairs, in spite of some resistance, 
to my mother, and there " put in 
quarantine " by being " lashed along- 
side " of her. 1 vehemently asked, 
" What had I done ; what had I 
done?" when the officer replied that 
he had found me "chasing rats around 
the cross and making a noise," which 
was doubtless a " breach of the 
peace" at that lime of night. 

It was a subject of no small mor- 
tification to find myself where I was, 
l)ointed and jeered at by the girls, 
among whom I was, and by the boys 
on the ^opposite side of the room; 
and I had no friendly feeling for the 
" blue-eyed, florid-faced, and bald- 
headed blockhead" that had done 
the mischief. I was perfectly sensi- 
ble of everything, but irritable, and 
not so observant as I might other- 
wise have been ; while what I had 
previously noticed became somewhat 
loosened and muddled in my mem- 
ory. Some of the men must have 
made their appearance in the ball- 
room ; but I do not recollect that 
any of them left their toddy on 
the floor below, where their hearts 
seemed to be. It was a children's 
dancing-school ball, and the dancing 
seems to have been confined to 
them. Had all of the four "gay 



people" spoken of been living in the 
town it might have been otherwise ; 
but the gallant young doctor who 
married the widow, and the fashion- 
able young wife of the old man had 
left it ; and there were apparently no 
others to take their places. I had 
not noticed who were drinking be- 
low, for I did not get beyond the ta- 
ble next the door, and was too much 
engrossed while there to think of 
anything else ; and I had no chance 
of looking in while being taken up- 
stairs by the officer. But I presume 
the new superintendent of quaran- 
tine would be among the drinkers, 
for his wife and three daughters were 
in the ball-room. Being a recently 
arrived Englishman, he may have 
preferred something else to toddy ; 
his choice being rum and brandy, 
with which he " fortified " his tea and 
coffee. He did not seem to be poi)- 
ular at first ; perhaps from some feel- 
ing of disparagement of "Scotch 
bodies, and Fife at that," or like a 
foolish person who said that while 
he lived there he would have an 
"opportunity for wearing out his old 
clothes." His boisterous ways soon 
jirocured him a nickname. As I 
have already said, his two daughters 
by his first wife were at the ball ; 
interesting and attractive girls, ap- 
jMoaching womanhood, who were 
shortly afterwards lost on the coast 
of India. There were also his " little 
angel," his second wife, and her lit- 
tle angel, who made considerable fnn 
of me, but for which I did not blame 
her. 

This English family made an in- 
teresting addition to the limited so- 
ciety of the place, such as it was, 
and added to the importance of the 
Captain's commission as a passport 
for him to go anywhere. They took 
up their residence in the wretched 
old farm-house above the Ferry, on 
the old road over the hills ; a build- 
ing which seems to have been 
erected when agriculture there was 
at a low ebb. At that time there 
must have been few dwellings in the 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



43 



village that could be rented to accom- 
modate newly-arrived people of their 
standing. 

There were two old maiden sisters 
who lived opposite the end of the 
school play-ground, in a small red- 
tiled house with a tall chimney. One 
of them, who was of a fair complex- 
ion and delicate, almost lived at 
the window, " flowering " on what 
seemed an endless web ; and, as she 
said, had never seen Preston Crescent 
since a house had been built on 
it. The other sister, a small, dark- 
featured, hardy and active woman, 
did all kinds 06 jobs in private fam- 
ilies on special occasions, or any- 
thing by which she could scrape to- 
gether an honest living. At the win- 
dow there were little things for sale, 
suitable for children. It was in this 
house that, for several years before 
we left Inverkeithing, we ate our 
"pieces" at mid-day when at school, 
or between sermons on Sunday, and 
used it generally as a place of call or 
convenience; and for which ample 
remuneration was made. There 
were several other families residing 
at a distance that made a similar use 
of the house. This was a great 
l)lace for certain kinds of gossip that 
was circumstantial and reliable ; and 
we all enjoyed it thoroughly. The 
old maid at the window collected the 
gossip that was brought into the 
house, while the other one ferreted 
outside for it in every direction. It 
was in this house that my eldest and 
youngest sisters caught typhus fever, 
from a girl of the place recently re- 
covered from it coming into the 
house, among so many children, 
sooner than was consistent with 
safety. They soon got over the ill- 
ness ; but the third boy of the fam- 
ily caught it, as the other two were 
recovering ; and it developed into 
tyi^hus in its most malignant form, 
but from which he recovered. 

At this time there was a large dis- 
tillery in Inverkeithing, in full opera- 
tion, which required an attendance 
of two excisemen. I remember 



three of them, all apparently past 
middle life. Judging by my ob- 
servation of this class of men else- 
where and afterwards, I would de- 
scribe these excisemen as rather su- 
perior men ; probably young military 
or naval officers, who had been dis- 
charged at the peace of 181 5, or the 
children of others who had been 
killed in the service. They cer- 
tainly were in every way superior 
to what I afterwards met under the 
name of gangers in a large commu- 
nity. Cheap rents and the absence 
of social pressure, in a small popu- 
lation, enabled the excisemen, with 
the king's commission in their 
pockets, to hold up their heads be- 
fore tile world. 

One of these excisemen and his 
wife had in every way a highly pre- 
sentable appearance ; but I could 
judge more accurately of their two 
boys, who attended the school — one 
of about ten and the other of about 
thirteen years. I do not remember 
seeing boys at any school that were 
more creditable in their ai)pearance, 
dress, manners, and behaviour. An- 
other exciseman and his wife, both 
well up in years, presented a plainer 
appearance than those alluded to, 
and rather old-fashioned, but very 
respectable -looking withal. They 
occupied part of the teacher's pew in 
the parish church, immediately in 
front of ours. Having the teacher 
so near me all the year round — Sun- 
days and Saturdays alike — was not 
to my liking ; but the case was made 
worse by the exciseman's only child, 
a girl a little older than myself, and 
of a very pert disposition. She 
would watch me during the service, 
and especially to see whether I was 
looking on the book and joining in 
the singing of the psalms. She man- 
aged to keep me in every way in or- 
der, to appearance at least, even if 
she had to thrust her straw bonnet, 
containing blue eyes and a scarlet 
countenance, over the back of her 
seat for that purpose, I had no re- 
dress but to say to myself that she 



44 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



was a "nasty little puggie " ; the 
last of which words became her nick- 
name at the school. 

Another of these excisemen was a 
tall, white-haired, venerable-looking 
man, who had been reduced from the 
position of a supervisor, in conse- 
quence of his having accepted a 
small keg of whiskey from a person 
who turned round and informed on 
him. The whiskey was received un- 
der the most honourable of circum- 
stances, with the single exception, 
that such presents were prohibited 
under a7iy circumstances. His wife, 
considerably i)ast middle life, was a 
Highland lady, not far removed from 
the main stem of a clan. She was 
tall and stout, and had blue eyes, 
dark brown hair, and a very dark 
florid complexion. Dressed in black 
and a cap or head-gear of what 
looked like dark-brown flowered 
lace, and with her dignified air and 
Highland spirit, she presented an 
imposing appearance. I was 

brought much in contact with her. 
What surprised and disappointed me 
was that, although she was large 
enough to make two mothers of a 
little boy like me, 1 never saw any 
children about the house for me to 
play with. She had a great fancy 
for blackbirds ; and as these were 
very plentiful about the Lazaretto, I 
got them for her. But she was very 
particular about the kind she 
wanted ; it was whistlers I was to 
bring, and did I know which were the 
whistlers ? " Oh, yes, ma'am," I 
said, "I know which are the whist- 
lers." I remember how sorry I felt 
on losing a young whistler as I was 
taking it to her, while on my way to 
school, by trying its power of flight 
and never recovering it. To me she 
appeared so much of a gentlemanly 
lady that 1 thought she must have 
whistled herself. She certainly 

swore a little, on one occasion at 
least, when she went down -stairs to 
visit her kitchen, to see who was the 
visitor there, and opened the door 
of her maid's closet-bed and found 



a man in his dirty shoes standing on 
her "good bed-clothes." My father 
was very intimate with her, and many 
a good-natured bout they had on the 
Highland and Lowland questions. 
My father would, in the best of hu- 
mour, use such expressions as 
"half-savage, half-barbarous, blood- 
tliirsty clans," and speak of " mon- 
keys being dressed in tartan"; when 
she would retort, in as good humour, 
but what she said I do not reuiem- 
ber, except that she would occasion- 
ally drop words that were not used 
in our house. 

Years afterwards, vvhen she was 
advanced \\\ life, I had occasion to 
convoy this lady to friends in Edin- 
burgli, whom she was visiting. A lit- 
tle ahead of us I saw a number of 
soldiers walking in the opposite di- 
rection, late at night, apparently 
drunk and disorderly. With her on 
my arm, I abruptly left the narrow 
sidewalk for the middle of the street; 
which so mortified the soldiers that 
they instantly made room for several 
like us to pass. I felt sorry for what 
I had done on finding that the poor 
fellows were not so far " on " as I 
thought. I also apologized to the 
lady, saying that 1 thought it best to 
err on the safe side under the circum- 
stances ; when she incidentally re- 
plied, " Oh, yes, I am a great coward 
at night, but I'll face the devil in 
daylight ! " 

My father was drafted from the 
Customs to act as superintendent of 
quarantine, but in what particular 
year I am uncertain. I see that he 
is officially designated by the latter 
office on the 25th May, 1829; but 
his appointment was certainly made 
years before that. When the cholera 
in 1832 disappeared, the use of the 
Lazaretto, as I have already said, 
was at an end. What little occasion 
there was for quarantine purposes 
could be met by the remaining hulk 
or guardship in St. Margaret's Hope, 
which fell to the charge of a naval 
officer; the first one employed* being 
the one 1 have referred to. While 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



the superintendent, my father was 
requested by the authorities at head- 
quarters to recommend a local sur- 
geon to act during the cholera; and 
the gallant young doctor referred to 
received the appointment. The fee, 
it was said, was a guinea a ship, 
which yielded five hundred guineas. 
This, it was alleged, was spent by the 
doctor in paying Iris debts and re- 
moving, some time afterwards, to a 
Colony. When the merchant vessels 
were riding quarantine in St. Marga- 
ret's Hope, the farmers and others 
on both sides of the firth suffered 
considerably by boats' crews, in spite 
of the quarantine regulations, exer- 
cising " free pratique " with the shore 
at night, and plundering everything 
green which they could eat. Once 
a vessel, in spite of her "clean bill 
of health," was refused admittance to 
Teith by the tide surveyor, for the 
reason of an extraordinary blackness 
which he accidentally discovered in 
the mouth of one of the boys on 
board. The case was referred fo the 
doctor, who rej^lied that there was 
no danger ; and that the boy only 
required to be fed on porridge and 
turnips. 

For the education and general ad- 
vantage of his large family, my father 
applied to the Board of Customs to 
be removed to Leith ; where, I be- 
lieve, he accei^ted a lower position 
in point of rank, but having a larger 
salary attached to it. And so, in 
September or October, 1835, we left 
Inverkeithing. 

Inverkeithing is a very ancient 
town, that at one time, it is said, 
took precedence of Edinburgh in 
the convention of royal burghs. It 
is within nine or ten miles of that 
city as the crow flies, but is hardly 
(if at all) observable from the 
steamer while on its way to Stirling. 
The vessel on turning the project- 
ing point of the Earl of Rosebery's 
grounds, on the south, keeps nearly 
on a straight line till it arrives at the 
North Queensferry. Between these 



45 

two points, St. Davids shows itself 
on the opposite side of the firth ; 
and within a mile towards the west 
is Inverkeithing, prettily situated on 
a bay of the same name, with a nar- 
row entrance, formed by the East 
and West Nesses that almost hide 
the town from view. It may, for 
that reason, be said to be, in a sense, 
" out of the world," particularly after 
a ferry was established at Granton, 
which took away the traffic, such as 
it was, that passed between the North 
and South Queensferries, and when 
mails and travellers were carried by 
rail, and in the absence, till lately, of 
any railway in- the neighbourhood. 

Notwithstanding that the dignified 
"ancient burgh" thus became (what 
it was pretty much always) a sleepy 
little place, out of sight and alm.ost 
out of mind, we could still have. ex- 
pected that such an inii)ortant work 
as the Encyclopccdia Britannica 
would have been more accurate in 
its description of it than to have said 
that " it is beautifully situated on the 
brow of an acclivity rising from the 
margin of a bay called St. Margaret's 
Hope." Had Inverkeithing been 
situated in some secluded nook on 
the coast of Japan, in place of with- 
in sight of Edinburgh, the bay on 
the edge of which it is built could 
not have been more incorrectly de 
scribed. St. Margaret's Hope is be- 
tween one and two miles by land 
from Inverkeithing, and several miles 
by water, judging from where it is 
supposed to begin. It may be said 
to extend from somewhere above the 
North and South Queensferries to 
the west, as far as there is deep wa- 
ter with good anchorage. Thus the 
five or six quarantine hulks rode at 
anchor probably opposite Rosyth 
burying- ground, pretty close to- 
gether, yet scattering, with room to 
swing with the wind ami tide. The 
remaining hulk, when I saw it from 
the hamlet of Rosyth, as already 
mentioned, stood out in the firth at 
an angle that would bring it nearly oji- 
posite the burying-ground mentioned. 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



46 

Chambers' Gazetteer of Scotland 
(published in 1846) is also inaccu- 
rate in regard to St. Margaret's 
Hope, for it says that "the bay 
between the promontory and Ro- 
syth Castle is called St. Margaret's 
Hoj^e." That in reality is St. Mar- 
garet's Bay ; a little bight that for the 
most part goes dry at low water, and 
extends for a short distance to a 
grassy point called IJmpet Ness. 
This was the most convenient spot 
for Queen Margaret to land, on her 
way to Dunfermline, when the wind 
was from the east ; for her vessel 
had only to drive past the North 
Queensferry, and take a sharp turn 
to the right, and enter the refuge 
ptepaied for it by nature. 

Inverkeithing, when I left it in 
1835, had, as I have already said, a 
large distillery in operation ; but it 
was discontinued some time before 
1841. The chemical works were 
closed in 1833 or 1834, in conse- 
quence of the death of their owner. 
There were salt-pans in use up to 
1835, so far as I remember. These 
had a well built of stone to hold the 
salt water, apparently of recent or 
modern construction, judging from 
the style of the work ; between 
which and a founder)^, a bone-mill 
and a ship-building yard was a public 
road. This well was not railed or 
fenced off, so that there was much 
danger m passing it at night, in the 
absence of lamps so far as I recollect. 
The salt-pans, immediately back of 
tlie well, and rising with the ground, 
seemed to be of wood, and present- 
ed a wretched appearance, and as if 
covered with soot. I recollect how 
peculiar a noise was made by the 
" salters " when pumping the water 
from the well for the purpose of con- 
verting it into salt by boiling. 
Chambers, in 18^6, alludes to "three 
l)ublic works on an extensive scale, 
namely, a distillery, a magnesia work, 
and some salt-pans" — the first two 
at least having been long out of use. 
Chambers is much more out of his 
reckoning when he says : — " The 



port of Inverkeithing is, by author- 
ity, a place for vessels riding quaran- 
tine, and for that purpose Govern- 
ment stations a body of officers, with 
a lazaretto on shore " ; for, as I have 
already stated, the Lazaretto was dis- 
continued shortly after 1832, and 
sold in 1835. 

Besides the works mentioned, 
there were a small tannery and meal 
or flour mill, opposite each other, on 
the town-side of a bridge that cross- 
ed what could hardly be called a 
stream, although the tide, I think, 
reached that far ;* and further up, 
on the opposite side of it, and "out 
of town," was a small fire-clay brick 
work. The only other work was a 
small ropery on the crescent that led 
to the East Ness. 

Small as Inverkeithing was, it had 
a provost and twelve councillors, a 
town-clerk, and a town-officer ; in 
consequence of which it was doubt- 
less well governed, if the number of 
those in "authority" would ensure 
that. 

I do not remember anything par- 
ticularly exciting in the town except- 
ing at Lammas fair and its horse 
race, to which 1 have already allud- 
ed. Every one, for miles around, 
made a public appearance on that 
day, and entered into the spirit of it. 
Even the herds had a half-holiday ; 
in antici[)ation of which they care- 
fully kept their cows off a piece of 
grass long in advance of the fair (and 
hence called a "Lammas bite"), so 
that on the morning of it the animals 
were turned into the reserve pasture, 
which would furnish them as nnich 
grass during the forenoon as they 
could get the whole day under or- 

* At this time there was no obstruc- 
tion to the flow of the fresh water till 
nearly opposite the distillery, where 
there was a dam with the usual sluice. 
In time of floods the stream would over- 
flow the bank, on the right, and lodge 
where there was a row of willow trees, 
at the bottom of some gardens, one of 
which belonged to the owner of the tan- 
nery, and contained an ancient stone 
dove-cot. 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



47 



dinary circumstances. I always took 
an interest in the herds' " Lammas 
bites." All that took place at the 
fair was merry-making and treating 
each other, at the stands in the 
principal part of the main (or only) 
street, with gingerbread and such 
things ; which was called a " fairin'." 
The semi-annual or periodical sale 
of oxen, fed on the refuse of the dis- 
tillery, was also an event in the i)lace, 
especially as some of the animals, on 
being removed by the purchasers, 
would become "raised" or go wild, 
and cause a disturbance in the 
neighbourhood. Another excitement 
proper to the i)lace was the launch 
of a vessel. That was always a gala 
day, which was looked forward to 
with much interest long before its 
occurrence, and called forth a full 
assembly of spectators. The last 
two vessels which I saw launched 
was a brig, of about 200 tons, called 
the Lo?-d Dalmcny, and a sloop, call- 
ed the Esperance^ that had a pecu- 
liarly square stern, and was com- 
manded by "Handy Davie" (from 
having lost a hand), a relative, I be- 
lieve, of the builder. The first I may 
say 1 saw built, from the keel uji- 
wards, but I regretted that I could 
not get on board of her when she was 
launched, although I made a " mess 
of myself" on the greased ways im- 
mediately afterwards. I might also 
say that I saw her rigged, and was 
on board of her every Sunday be- 
tween sermons ; but I lost conceit 
of her, large as I thought she was, 
on seeing her very soon thereafter 
discharging coals at the coal-hill of 
Leith. The Espcrance was laid 
down inside of the Lord Dalnicny 
while she was being built, and was 
launched before her. I could not 
learn when the launch was to take 
place, but I saw it, notwithstanding, 
from immediately behind our house, 
a little to the right, and well on in 
the evening, when I heard the sound 
of the mallets raising her on the 
ways, and the huzzaing as she enter- 
ed the water, in a direction almost 



on a line with the blacksmith's shop, 
which was inmiediately to the left of 
the chemical works. A very short 
time elapsed between the first sound 
of the mallets and the vessel enter- 
ing the bay. I particularly remem- 
ber the Esperance, for she came 
alongside of the pier at the Lazaretto 
and took on board our furniture for 
Leith ; which I saw packed, or 
braced, as already mentioned, and 
shipped. It was after the dismissal of 
the school for the vacations; towards 
the latter end of which I found time 
hang so heavily on my hands, at our 
isolated residence, that I was glad — 
as the phrase ran — to find "any kind 
of a hole to i)ut my head into." 1 
spent my time in looking after things, 
as if I had been placed there to see 
that the man employed did his work ; 
which was not "witli all his might," 
but steadily, while he took many a 
snuff when at it. He might even 
have thought that I was there to 
watch him, if the work had been 
done on " days' wages." 

Inverkeithing, at the time alluded 
to, being on the way of certain kinds 
of traffic between the nortli and the 
south, had its share of all kinds of 
native and foreign "gangrel bodies" 
passing through it. 'I'he latter in- 
cluded Swiss girls with tambourine 
and singing, " Buy a broom," which 
was of wood shaved off the stick of 
which it was made. There were 
also " bearded blackguards " with 
monkeys, raccoons and bears. The 
dancing bears attracted my particu- 
lar attention, fronv the Bible story of 
two she ones coming out of a wood 
and tearing forty-and-two ciiildren 
for mocking the prophet by saying, 
" Go uj), thou bald-head." The al- 
lusion had reference to my feeling 
for old Daniel Nicol, and his cat 
destroying my rabbits inside of the 
Lazaretto wall, as already mentioned 
(p. 9). The place was well suited 
for a rabbit-warren on a small scale ; 
and what with the grass inside of it, 
and the feed which 1 could otherwise 
find, I imagined I could make the 



48 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



business profitable even by selling 
rabbits a month old at fourpence a 
])3ir ; but, as I have already said, 
" Every young rabbit, whether tame 
or wild, put into the enclosure dis- 
apjieared, nor could a brood be 
reared; the old rabbits only held 
their own" (p. lo). I might have 
even cursed the old man and his cat. 
Daniel was certainly not a prophet ; 
but I could not say whether he was or 
was not a " bald-head," for often as I 
was in his house it was almost always 
v.-hen he was out ; and he had a habit 
of wearing his blue bonnet wherever 
he was, and might have slept with it 
on his head for anything I knew to 
the contrary. The bear for the rea- 
son mentioned appeared to me as 
partaking something of a " person" ; 
which impression was increased by 
its dancing acquirements, its size, 
and the muzzle that it had on it. 
Moreover, it was a wild animal that 
could not be handled or ajjproached, 
while I had a crude idea of the rela- 
tion that such " strange brutes" bore 
to the human family. It was always 
a subject of interest where the bears 
were lodged, and on what they were 
fed — sheeps' heads or what not. 
Every such bear I convoyed out of 
the town when the time of its leav- 
ing it was at all suitable. One on 
leaving it in our direction began 
vigorously to dig into a "bum-bee's 
bink" at the witches' knovve, disre- 
gardless of the attack of the bees, 
while its owners were refreshing 
themselves and counting their cop- 
pers ; anil it was then I learned that 
it had a great taste for honey. On 
another occasion, when I was not 
present, a bear left the town in the 
oi)posite direction, when a tollman 
of a surly -disposition insisted on a 
fi:ire for it, and swung his gate to on 
its master refusing to pay it. The 
''bearded blackguard" immediately 
drew the bear to him and threatened 
to unmuzzle it, to " fight its way 
through," if a passage was not given; 
which the tollman was glad to assent 
to. I asked again and again to have 



the scene described to me, and en- 
vied the boy who was present at a 
squabble of that kind. 

Indeed in a place like Inverkeith- 
ing the most trifling thing became a 
subject of more or less interest. 
Even a journeyman tailor from Edin- 
burgh taking up his residence in it 
became the town's talk, as to how 
he would succeed, and who would 
" patronize " him. — Occasionally a 
regiment or several comjianies of foot- 
soldiers would be billeted in the 
town on tjieir way towards the south, 
and answer the roll-call and have 
their ranks dressed in the morning. 
— Frequently would droves of cattle 
pass through it on their way from the 
north. These would sometimes have 
their front feet shod to enable them 
to stand the travelling. — The ex- 
amination of the parish school was 
always an event in the place ; but 
it was exceeded by the sacrament in 
the parish church, on which occasion 
there would be present people that 
were hardly ever seen inside of it 
at other times. — I particularly recol- 
lect an excitement caused by a trial 
at the town-house of several "big 
blackguard boys" for annoying the 
children of several families while on 
their way to and from school ; and 
of their parents [)aying a heavy fine 
rather than let them go to jail, which 
effectually stopped that trouble. — 
Laying the foundation of a building 
was a matter of no small importance 
in the place. Three of these I par- 
ticularly remember. The first was 
that of the provost, who was a gro- 
cer, building a shop, and a house 
over it, immediately opposite the 
opening that led to the cross, and on 
ground that had been occupied by 
some miserable old houses, one of 
which was entered by an outside 
stair, and in which dwelt a crooked, 
lame and limping woman that li/ed 
by begging and selling "spunks" — 
that is, splints f)f wood dipped in 
brimstone, and used in connection 
with a tinder-box and flint and steel, 
for at this lime a lucifer-match was 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



49 



not to be seen in the place. An- 
other building was the corn market, 
which was erected on an open >pot 
that was covered by nettles and 
rubbish ; which also covered the 
ground in front of the place on which 
the house behind the school-house 
to which I have alluded (p. 39) was 
built. — The return of an Inverkeith- 
ing man from the P:ast Indies, with 
a coloured wife and a large family of 
children, all born there, and a cor- 
responding establishment of ser- 
vants, or rather slaves, was quite an 
event in the social history of the 
place. At first the children attend- 
ed the parish school, but afterwards 
had a tutor, which created a sensa- 
tion. 

I have no recollection of political 
or municipal squabbles, although 
there were doubtless such ; nor of 
social meetings an)ong the people 
generally beyond a dim remembrance 
of feasting, in the way of dinners 
and suppers, and especially suppers, 
and the invariable toddy drinking, 
which was not a|)i)arently carried to 
excess as a rule. Indeed in such a 
l)lace people could have lew sources 
of amusement after business hours 
but gossip and tea and toddy. In 
all probability few newspapers would 
be taken ; but these would doubtless 
be well read by the little circles sub- 
i-cribing for them. There was a 
town library, contained in a book- 
case standing against the upper end 
of the school-room, towards the left. 
I saw it opened but once. The 
binding of the books indicated that 
they were standard or old-fashioned 
works. — Sometimes, but not very 
often, there would be a children's 
party, or something like it ; on which 
occasions our maid would be sent to 
bring us liome ; and she would have 
some one to see her home ; so that 
in passing, in the dark, the uninhabit- 
ed old Cruicks' farm-house, and the 
ruinous houses below it, near the 
edge of the bay, we would feel se- 
cure wlien in the presence of two 
grown-up people. 



Inverkeithing had but one main 
street, which separated into two, a 
little before the parish church was 
reached, on entering it from the 
south ; the left-hand branch going 
north., and the right-hand one ea^t 
down the mill wynd. This division 
formed a triangle, the base of which 
was the road back of the church and 
parish school that led to the entrance 
to the harbour wynd. The other 
wynd led to Dunfermline. Oppo- 
site the school-house was a veimel — 
that is, a small and narrow street 
with no outlet. There were several 
narrow closes, running in the direc- 
tion of the harbour ; but I never 
went down any of them excei)t to 
go to the old weaver to get my hair 
cut, as mentioned (p. 17). His door 
was the first or second one from tiie 
entrance on the left, on the ground 
floor ; and even then I would hesi- 
tate and survey the i)lace before 
entering it ; for these closes had the 
reputation of harbouring a wild set. 
with which I was not desirous t)f 
coming in contact, in consequence 
of the fresh tradition of Burke and 
Hare "burking" people in sucli 
places in Edinbiu-gh, and selling 
their bodies to Dr. Knox, whose 
summer residence in our innnediate 
neighbourliood intensified the feehng 
in question. I remember that there 
was another wild set — the women 
especially — whose house was up an 
overhanging stair, which I think was 
of wood, on the left-hand side of die 
opening that led to the cross, going 
from the direction of the church, i 
still recollect their names. 

The main, I nn'ght say the only, 
street in Inverkeuhing had two small 
detached "blocks" of houses, both 
on the right as the town was entered 
from the south. The first com- 
menced with the "beggars' inn," 

kept by Jenny , and ended 

where the street widened, a little be- 
fore Dunfermline wynd was reached ; 
and the other began where it nar- 
rowed, near wliere there w;vs an an- 
cient draw-well, b^'i't, up,, th^ street. 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



50 



and opposite a tall building in ruins, 
called, I think, the " Gala Tower," 
and ended at the opening that led to 
the cross. The only passages from 
the town to the harbour were by 
the wynd mentioned, and by a path 
or road (but not a street) from the 
inner end of the corn market. The 
town, as already mentioned, had a 
crescent extending from the harbour 
proper to the East Ness, at the en- 
trance of the bay. Only one house 
had a door-bell ; a few (but very 
few) had knockers; the others had 
nature's provision — the tap of a 
stick, or a rap from the knuckles. 
No hou-se had any kind of bell-hang- 
ing; nor do I think that any shop 
had a sign, or house a door-jilate, or 
street a name painted on it, for in 
such a small place these seemed un- 
necessary. There were doubtless a 
{ii\s street lamps, burning oil, but I 
do not recollect that there were such. 
The town contained four bridges, not 
counting what connected the two 
(juays at the port. These were at 
the harbour and mill wynds, the 
Boreland farm* and the brick-work. 
I have already alluded to a well on 
the beach near the foundery (p. 33) 
and an ancient one on the main 
street. There was another in a 
recess from the street at the " Pop- 
lars " ; another behind the church- 
yard ; and I think there was another 
near the road that led to the Bore- 
land farm. The first and last two 
were pump-wells. There were a 
number of old buildings in the town, 
of some of which I cannot speak 
{particularly. Opposite the church 
ithere was one called the " Ark," in 
which dwelt a turner, nicknamed 
''• Noah," from whom I used to buy 



* This bridge had a fine way connect- 
ing it with the town, and an interesting 
yiew during the summer could be had 
irom it, looking in the direction of the 
mill. The ground between these was 
much frequented by the boys fishing for 
minnows, or otherwise amusing them- 
selves, during the midday interval at 
;S.cboQL. 



very superior tops at a penny 
apiece. 

The parish church, a modern 
structure, was built on to a very 
ancient tower, which was square in 
shape and of a moderate height, 
and had a clock in it, and harboured 
a breed of wild pigeons in the top of 
it. This church was small in size, 
notwithstanding which its roof was 
supported by round stone columns, 
forming, I think, two rows of three 
pillars each. Inside of the tower 
was a very ancient stone font, of 
large size, which divided the passage 
into the church. While repairs were 
being done to the roof of the church 
it took fire ; which formed an ejioch 
in the history of the town, as things 
that happened were spoken of as 
having occurred during that year or 
in such or such a year before or after 
it. The school was immediately ad- 
joining, with the church-yard and its 
watch-house in ruins between them, 
and was a handsome modern build- 
ing. There was also the dissenting 
church of Ebenezer Brown. The 
object that attracted my notice the 
most of all was the cross. It con- 
sisted of a round pillar on the top 
of which was a griffin, surrounded 
by a low round stone wall and iron 
railing. This was doubtless erected 
on the place on which the real cross 
had stood. 

The town was partly surrounded 
by three farms belonging to the 
Preston family — Spencerfield, the 
Boreland and Belle Knowes, a very 
valuable property, that extended 
from near St. Davids to the rear of 
the town near the Dunfermline 
wynd. I am uncertain whether the 
pretty plantation on Letham hill, 
which dipped towards the sea near 
St. Davids, belonged to the Preston 
estate. Next to it came the flag- 
staff, surrounded by a wall with a 
gate, to which I have already allu- 
ded. This prominent land-mark was 
a favourite resort for us between ser- 
mons, when the weather was suita- 
ble, for we could get a fine view of 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



51 



our place from it. I have been told 
that the flag is always hoisted on 
rent-days. Along the back of the 
town were gardens bounded by a 
■wall, from which to near the top of 
the ridge were narrow strips of 
ground in cultivation, extending 
from Belle Knowes' farm to a bullet- 
headed hill covered with rich green 
grass, back of the witches knov/e, and 
on which was a growth of wild garlic 
— the only place where I found it. 
On the side of the town reaching to 
the harbour there were also gardens. 
From the Lazaretto we had a com- 
])lete view of the bay, and every- 
thing surrounding it ; the most strik- 
ing objects being the gardens reach- 
ing to the harbour, a very tall old- 
fashioned house containing deep 
rows of chinnieys, and a row of tall 
J.ombardy poplars, that were fes- 
tooned with sparrows' nests. The 
manse and its garden reaching to the 
water comi)leted the objects that nat- 
urally attracted the eye. There was 
also a stri|) of ground, several feet 
higher than the road, and covered 
with grass, at both ends of the town, 
on the left-hand side as it was enter- 
ed from tlie south, that were called 
the west and east loans. 

The bay of Inverkeithing is capa- 
ble of being converted into an ex- 
cellent harbour of some depth, if the 
demands of business called for it. 
All that would be necessary to be 
done would be to contract the en- 
trance by a sea wall and insert a 
gate, and deepen the space inside. 
Under any circumstances it would 
be what is called a " dry harbour," 
for the tide recedes a considerable 
way beyond the entrance ; but a 
deep-water channel could be made 
and doubtless maintained by scour- 
ing it with the water collected be- 
hind the gate. At the time I have 
alluded to, the shallow channel lead- 
ing to the town passed close to the 
West Ness pier, and had ]M)les indi- 
cating its course inland. The dci)th 
of water, at ordinary tides, might 
have admitted loaded vessels of 200 
tons. The circumference of the bay 



consisted of the natural beach ex- 
cept at the town ; the harbour of 
which consisted of two quays oppo- 
site each other, with a small branch 
to the left as it was entered. 

1 could still enter the town and 
point out tlie residences and give 
the names and callings of the prin- 
cipal people, and of those whose 
actions or characters presented saH- 
ent points, and describe them pretty 
accurately ; but it would not always 
be in good taste, were it only owing 
to the many kindnesses of wiiich I 
had been the subject at the hands of 
most of them. I particularly rec- 
ollect a couple whose family con- 
sisted only of a cat and parrot, and 
in whose dwelling there were troubles, 
but none of them of a deadly nature. 
The parrot had in some way learned, 
or been taught by others outside, to 
take a part in these squabbles. Fre- 
quently in passing the door 1 wouUi 
walk as slowly as I could to hear 
what was passing within. The town 
had its full share of '- characters " of 
various kinds ; but I will allude to 
none of them except to a seafaring 
man of whom nothing good was ex- 
pected, yet who recovered himself 
and became so industrious and en- 
terprising as, among other things, to 
carry grain in an old yacht between 
ports in the firth, having no one on 
board but himself and his dog. I 
could still give many of the slang 
phrases and doggerel of the place, 
but these would not be always pre- 
sentable. 

I may be allowed to allude to a 
particular family. One Sunday after- 
noon, as I was going home from 
church, I took particular notice of 
the pigeons belonging to it — ordi- 
nary birds, but of a very pretty ap- 
pearance — when tlie head of it said, 
" I see you are admiring my doos." 
Yes, I said, 1 was. " Well then," 
said he, " look in as you go home 
from school to-morrow, and I will 
give you a pair."* This was a tall 

* There were also some " fantails," 
which I do not think were ever seen on 
the street, near as that was to the " doo- 



52 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



and stout man, who owned tlie 
ground he farmed, while his wife was 
a httle but stout-built woman, both 
c;f them well advanced in years, and 
in dress and appearance not unlike 
Quakers, although I believe they 
were Kirk people. Their oldest son 
jtressed me, after my father's death, 
to tell him, as a favour, in what re- 
spect he had been indebted to him. 
I replied that he had recommended 
hiin (which I believe was equivalent 
to an appointment) to his govern- 
ment office, which he filled while at- 
tendmg X.6 his business proper ; and 
that it was entirely in keeping with 
Ills chara(!ter never to have mention- 
ed the subject to \\\m. An unmarried 
daughter,. of a prim and precise but 
lady-like appearance and disjiosition, 
had always a kind word for us. Another 
son went about with a dog and gun, 
and wore a coat containing so many 
"pouches" that I could never man- 
age to count them. 

The maiden sister of the principal 
grocer, who was the provost of die 
burgh, and who lived with him, used 
to frequent the neighbourhood of our 
l)lace several days every month with 
her " washing," where there was a 
suitable piece of grass sloping to the 
sea, and bleach it with the water 
from Pinkie well, a few yards to the 
west. She was " a little black-eyed 
body," and always had a pleasant 
word for us when going to and from 
school. 

There was a house, entered from 
the right on going down the harbour 
wynd, in connection with which 
many pleasant associations are wrap- 
ped up in my memory. It was 

cot." Among my earliest recollections 
is that of a very large flock of pigeons 
that were kept in the " small dilapidated 
stone building that apparently had been 
used as a temporary smithy," inside of 
the Lazaretto wall ; from which they 
were transferred to the upper story of 
the Lazaretto itself, with a large sail 
spread on the floor, and some of the 
slats left open. But very soon they 
disappeared for the most part, in conse- 
quence of people shooting them. 



situated in the middle of a narrow 
garden, which, I think, had a door 
at the bottom of it. It was a red- 
tiled building having a wing or ex- 
tension towards the water. Its oc- 
cupants were a widow, well advanced 
in years, and almost toothless, and 
of a dark complexion ; and an un- 
married daughter, also of a sv.^arthy 
hue, and of a very affected tone of 
voice, which had become natural to 
her, and was pleasant. From these 
two ladies I received many kind- 
nesses. 

The last change in the population 
of the place was a family in the 
spring of 1835 temporarily taking 
up their residence in the house op- 
posite ours, on the other side of the 
entrance to the bay, and which, as I 
have already said (p. 25), had been 
long uninhabited, and had the repu- 
tation of being haunted by ghosts ; 
in which condition it had been an 
eyesore to us. The father of the 
family had just left a factorship or 
some §uch occupation. The chil- 
dren Tivere very prepossessing in 
every way, and, becoming as it were 
neighbours, helped to relieve us of 
the monotony of our existence in 
our isolated residence. The water 
between us kept the children good 
friends. We could see them at their 
plays, and by going to the end of 
our i)ier would call on them. When 
the tide was out we would cross over 
to them, or they to us ; and we would 
sometimes visit them on our way 
home from school when the tide 
suited ; but we had to be carpful in 
getting over in time, or we would 
have had a long journey home by 
land. 

In referring to the cholera in 
1832, I have said that in regard to 
the subject of death I was satisfied 
that I was incapable of realizing it, 
at that time, " unless it had been of 
the death of an inmate of the family, 
or of one with whom I had stood in 
close and constant relationship " 
(p. 16). The first case that was 
brought home particularly to me was 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



53 



that of an old man, standing in near 
relationship to the Inverkeithing 
farmer first alluded to. He gener- 
ally went under the name of " Auld 
Pow," owing to his bald head. He 
was killed by the horses that were 
turning the threshing - mill. As 
may be easily imagined, there were 
many stories of the appearance of 
'' Auld Pow's " ghost. Shortly after 
this two boys of the farmer, one 
about three years and the other 
about five years old, were scalded in 
the farm boiler ; the youngest to 
above the hips, in consequence of 
which he died. They were pretty 
children, the youngest especially ; 
fair-haired, black-eyed and almost 
little Spaniards in their complexion 
(one parent being very dark, and the 
other very fair) — literally "olive 
branches." The event created an 
intense feeling in the neighbourhood. 
The parents paid us a visit immedi- 
ately thereafter, and the mother, sit- 
ting at the fireside, took the fourth 
boy of the family on her knee, and 
acted very strangely in regard to 
him. She said that he was exactly 
of the age of the child she had lost, 
and commenced to take off his shoes 
(showing a hole in one of his stock- 
ings, at the sight of which my mother 
winced), and burst into tears, amid 
the solemn silence of all present. 
This was the first occasion on which 
1 saw a grown-up person weep. I 
remember another painful occur- 
rence of a different nature — that of 
two boys, of about four or five years 
old, playing on a heap of sand, at 
the beginning of the crescent, and 
in so(ne way one of them having 
had the sand thrown in his face, and 
completely covering his eye-balls.* 

It remains for me to speak of the 
Cruicks' Peninsula. In the descrip- 
tion given of it in the Statistical Ac- 
count of Scotland, already referred 



* The population of Inverkeithing has 
been going down. In 1861 it was 1,817 I 
in 1871, 1,755 ; and in 18S1, 1,646. 



to (p. 40), I think it is stated that it 
is considerably above a mile across 
it, and that it rises to 300 feet at its 
highest part. The neck connecting 
it with what might be called the main- 
land is about half a mile in length, 
which might be about a fifth of its en- 
tire circumference. On the northern 
side of this neck is Inverkeithing bay, 
and on the southern is St. Margaret's 
bay. The old road from the direc- 
tion of Inverkeithing passed between 
the chemical works and the black- 
smith's shop, and crossed it diago- 
nally, nearly in a straight line, till it 
ended at the brow of the hill aboye 
the Ferry. This peninsula occupies 
a peculiar position in the estuary of 
the Forth, and presents a striking ap- 
pearance, and I believe is the only 
one of the kind connected with the 
river. The Forth ceases to be a 
river at or near Alloa, where it 
widens into the firth, and contracts 
between the ferries, by the jutting 
out of the Cruicks' peninsula ; so 
that in looking west from it the wa- 
ter has almost the appearance of be- 
ing a lake. The projecting ground 
by being turned by vessels flying 
from a storm from the east or west 
gives ample protection to them on 
either side of it. 

The ground in my time presented 
nothing in the way of adornment ex- 
cept the recent erection of the new 
Cruicks' farm-house, with some trees 
which had not had time to grow. 
There was also Mr. Cathcart's house 
at St. Margaret's, with some pine or 
fir trees which hud just been planted. 
The other place, which had a pretty 
appearance, 1 have already alluded 
to (p. 35) as "a recent plantation 
on the brow of the village" of the 
Ferry. This I believe belonged to 
a Captain Macconnochie, who, I also 
believe, was the well-known Captain 
Macconnochie of penal transporta- 
tion discussion. If the whole pe- 
ninsula could have become the prop- 
erty of a mtin of taste, it could have 
been made an attractive place, with 
the water surrounding it (when the 



54 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



tide was in) and the various aspects 
of the land in immediate view. 

There was nothing very striking in 
the appearance of the place. Behind 
the first ridge, facing Inverkeithing, 
and extending from behind the 
chemical works to opposite the old 
Cruicks' farm-house, it was general- 
ly believed that the Parliamentary 
army in Cromwell's time erected 
their batteries in the action that was 
fought in the neighbourhood. At 
fhe same time there had doubtless 
been a battery erected to guard the 
entrance of the bay, for about a 
hundred yards from it there were 
two sides of a square that appeared to 
iiave been the remains of a light 
earthwork. In Cronnvell's time it 
would seem that there was nothing 
but a bridle-road across the hills, 
with a few houses at the Ferry, and 
a landing at projecting rocks. Even 
in my father's recollection a landing 
was effected at what appeared to me 
to be a rock, near the light-house, on 
the west side of the pier, and close to 
where it commenced. A few of the 
houses at the Ferry in 1835 doubt- 
less existed in the middle of the 
seventeenth century ; and the same 
might possibly be said of the black- 
smith's shop alluded to, and especial- 
ly of the old farm-house on the iiill 
(|). 42). In all probability the coast 
from the Ferry to Inverkeithing. in- 
cluding both sides of the entrance to 
the bay, was as nature left it ; that 
is, there would be no piers before 
the town was reached. In my time 
the East Ness had no pier, but a 
substantial wall, of blue stone, of 
apparently recent construction, that 
served the purpose of a pier, at the 
sharp turn of the coast ; and a low 
stone platform for boats at different 
stages of the tide. The pier at the 
West Ness (as seen in the frontis- 
piece) was apparently of consider- 
able age, and was built, I think, of 
blue and sand stone. 

From the first ridge on the penin- 
sula, on the north side, the road kept 
ascending till it reached the second, 



the highest part, between Port Laing 
sands on the east and St. Margaret's 
bay on the west ; both of which 
bend inwards, and contract the 
ground to its narrowest width. Be- 
tween these ridges the ground dips 
somewhat to the west. I have al- 
ready alluded to the views to be had 
from this part (pp. 13 and 27). Look- 
ing towards the east, we have before 
us both coasts of the Forth, and its 
islands — Inchgarvie to the light, 
Inchcolm to the left, Inchmickery in 
the centre, and beyond that, but a 
little to the left of it, Inchkeilh, and 
Cramond island to the right, a little 
beyond Barnbougle Point. On ar- 
riving at the top of the hill behind 
the Ferry, the eye is immediately 
attracted by the view on the north 
coast, from the East Ness to beyond 
Inchcolm, which is really fine. The 
other views are of a less striking 
nature, and more or less attractive 
by associations of ideas, and the 
seasons, and the state of the atmos- 
l^here. A very interesting one, from 
this elevated spot, presents itself 
from the East Ness to the left, tak 
ing in both sides of the almost land- 
locked little inlet (when the tide is 
in), with Inverkeithing rising from 
the water, and the ground rising be- 
hind it, and the country still rising 
behind that, excepting that the row 
of old white-washed houses called 
Castland Hill, acting like an eye- 
sore, sj^oiled the view in that direc- 
tion. When the Lazaretto was near- 
ly reached, on the way from the 
Ferry, a view could be had of Edin- 
burgh Castle ; and at times the re- 
ports of its salutes could be heard. 
I have already said (p. 13) that "the 
Ferry Hills, east of the road," ex- 
tending to Caroline's Nose (or " the 
Caroline Knowes," as it was fre- 
quently expressed), were "clothed 
throughout in the finest of pasture, 
and (one might say) covered with 
horses, cattle and sheep." Caroline's 
Nose, in 1835, was a perpendicular 
precipice which was being gradually 
eaten away by quarrying the stone 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



for street-paving and such purposes. 
If the work has been kept up till 
now there must be comi^aratively 
htlle remaining of it. Laying the 
land down and keeping it so long in 
])asture had its origin in its having 
been leased by a very enterprising 
and successful man at the Ferry, 
who kept a first-class inn there, of 
moderate size, and was extensively 
connected with those having mail 
contracts and posting generally. 
Grazing the land with horses, cattle 
and sheep, all at the same time, kept 
it in the fine condition described. 
He seemed to have occasionally dealt 
in cattle, or grazed them temporarily 
for others, for there were many of 
them ; and they would sometimes 
become wild and break out of the 
enclosure, which is the reason for 
what I have said, that " none of us 
had ever thought of passing over the 
pasture land .... unless we were 
with a grown-up person" (p. 13). 

The highest ridge which 1 have 
alluded to is nearly opposite the 
middle of Port Laing sands ; the 
eastern end being about a hundred 
yards from the road. It is very 
short in length. The western end 
of it looks down on St. Margaret's 
bay. The best view to be got, look- 
ing towards the east, is from where 
there was a tomb, erected by a per- 
son who apparently never occupied 
it. It was immediately above the 
sands. The prosjiect seems to have 
attracted him, as if that was to be 
the spot where he wished to rest. It 
was a plain structure, on a sharp in- 
cline, with the entrance facing the east. 
The top, surrounded by a low para- 
pet, was covered with whin bushes. 
Everything connected with it looked 
as if it had never been cared for 
from the day of its erection. Latter- 
ly the door gave way, and nothing 
was to be seen inside but a dark- 
brown empty jar, of a large size and 
antique shape. This tomb was 
nearly in the middle of a small field- 
like enclosure, formed by the most 
common-place dry-stone dyke, in- 



side of which I never saw an animal 
grazing. 

In the jireceding pages I have fre- 
quently alluded to Port Laing sands, 
although the expression generally 
made use of was " Pork Laing." It 
was a place considerably spoken of, 
as it was the only sandy beach with- 
in miles on either side of it. In my 
time, with the jiasture land above it, 
it was a pretty place, not merely in 
a child's estimation, but in that of 
anyone. It was about half a mile 
from our house, a little beyond 
" Henderson's dyke," a dry-stone 
fence that ran from the sea towards 
the walled garden of the Cruicks' 
farm-house, and met another such 
fence that led to the sea inside of the 
bay. These and the sea coast form- 
ed nearly a square, and constituted 
"the limits" (pp. 8, 15 and 23) in- 
side of which we felt that no one 
but ourselves and friends and the 
farmer's people had a right to enter. 
Immediately after passing Hender- 
son's dyke the coast bends into Port 
Laing sands, and then takes a turn 
outwards till it passes Caroline's 
Nose, and then bends into the Fer- 
ry. Port Laing sands was our favour- 
ite resort. There we would amuse 
ourselves in many ways, and among 
others by picking up oyster shells 
and skimming them along the surface 
of the sea. Sometimes we would 
climb the face of the ground to the 
level of the plateau on which the 
cattle were grazing, and, if they 
were at some distance from us, make 
for the old farm-house ; or take the 
narrow path along the steep coast 
line past Caroline's Nose till we 
came to the Ferry. Attractive as 
Port Laing was considered, I do not 
remember ever having seen any one 
there but ourselves and those with 
us ; and I was very often there. I 
certainly never saw any one bathing 
at the place. The Ferry does not 
seem to have been nuich resorted to 
at the time alluded to, as a summer 
residence ; or it had its own facili- 
ties for sea-bathing without lesorting 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



56 



to Port Laing sands. The distance 
between the two was not great, al- 
though there was a little climbing to 
be done on both sides. It was at 
Port Laing I first learned that 
crabs (called " partans ") hid them- 
selves in the sand, for I dug them 
out of it, near the salmon stake-nets 
that were there. 

Between the sand proper and the 
bill there was what geologists call a 
"raised beach," of a very little ele- 
vation, on which I have seen very 

fair crops reaped by old Adam , 

who made or used a very good road 
from the hill down to it. Between 
the cultivated ground and the sand 
there were some stones of consider- 
able size and irregular shape, that 
could hardly be considered a fence 
made by the hand of man, although 
they served that purpose, but as if 
they had almost been left there by 
nature. Immediately near these 
stones, on the side facing the sea, 
yet not washed by it, there were 
some pretty specimens of what are 
to be found in such a place, that is, 
tall and stout stalks, with few leaves, 
bearing flowers of a delicate pink- 
like colour. 

This sandy beach is associated in 
my memory with an adventure with 
two boys, a very little older than 
myself, getting a boat at Inverkeith- 
ing and leaving the bay in it. My 
first care was to lie down in the boat 
till it passed our pier, when we pulled 
along the shore in the direction of 
Port Laing, and out of what current 
there might have been. It was a 
small boat and easily managed, one 
oar being on one side near the bow, 
and two on tiie other side nearer the 
stern. We were wretched rowers, 
taking "sj>oonful about" with our 
oars. The other boys insisted on 
passing the sands, but I got frighten- 
ed at the idea of going beyond the | 
first head-land into a sea unknown to 
me, and refused to pull another 
stroke, when we returned, and got 
home in safety. 

1 have alluded to a loch on the 



top of the Ferry Hills, immediately 
back of Port Laing sands (p. 27). 
It was of a very small size, yet it 
had an artificial island in the middle 
of it, and a boat in the shape of a 
Norwegian skift". I remember these 
two things particularly, because one 
day I saw a very attractive walking- 
stick on the island, when I imme- 
diately made for the boat, but found 
it padlocked, so that I had to take 
leave of the stick, on account of not 
being able to swim. Indeed I do 
not remember having even bathed in 
the sea ; the aversion to which hav- 
ing apparently had its origin in the 
rough handling of our maid when 
she bathed me. But it was quite 
common for my father, when the 
tide suited, to leave the house in the 
morning, with nothing on him but a 
cloak and slippers, and avail himself 
of the excellent facilities that we had 
for sea-bathing.* 

The loch spoken of had evidently 
been made or put in order by Mr. 
Cathcart, already alluded to, whose 
property, towards the west, and under 
the hill, adjoined it, with the high- 
road between them. In that case he 
must have got the consent of the 
owner and occupier of the land. 
The loch was kept in a very neat 
condition, and had the appearance 
of having been recently put in order, 
for the bank on the north side looked 
as if covered with a peat like soil 
that had been thrown up from the 
bottom of it. The south side of 
this small sheet of water seemed flat 
and marshy. There were no trees 
or anything of that nature surround- 
ing it. 

Immediately below this loch, but 
a little to the right, is St. Margaret's 



* Our usual bathing place was imme- 
diately behind the Lazaretto wall, where 
the rocks had been removed for the pur- 
pose. The people of the town who 
could swim bathed at the East Ness, and 
the others on the beach near the found- 
ery. The water of the bay was pretty 
pure, judging from the fact that salt was 
made from it. 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



57 



bay. This also was one of our 
favourite places of amusement, par- 
ticularly when the wind was from the 
east. Saturday being house-clean- 
ing day, all the children, after a 
hastily got-up dinner, were, I might 
say, almost "turned out of doors" 
if tlie weather was suitable. Inside 
of the Lazaretto wall was frequently 
resorted to by us on such occasions 
when the weather or condition of the 
ground was questionable ; but the 
hill looking down on St. Margaret's 
bay was frequently our choice. From 
the ground surrounding it we had a 
fine view of the five or six quaran- 
tine hulks at anchor in St. Marga- 
ret's Hope, and the ruins of Rosyth 
Castle, to the right, before alluded to 
(p, 27). The only dwelling in sight 
was the tollhouse. There is nothing 
particular to be said about this little 
bay, although it is not devoid of in- 
terest. The origin of its name has 
at least created a sentimental feeling 
in regard to it. I have a number of 
personal reminiscences connected 
with the place. First, there was a 
quarry of free or sand-stone immedi- 
ately adjoining Mr. Cathcart's prop- 
erty of St. Margaret's, if it did not 
form part of it. It seems to have 
been opened to build his house ; and 
never to have been resorted to for 
any other purpose. Its size indica- 
ted that. I frequently resorted to it 
with the blacksmith's dog for the 
purpose of swimming it in it, as it 
was easily reached by passing from 
his house behind the chemical works. 
To a child there is a peculiar awe- 
inspiring fascination connected with 
quarries and lochs of unknown depth. 
The stone of this quarry was evi- 
dently of superior quality, judging 
from my impression of it when com- 
pared with such in other places 
afterwards. And this estimation was 
confirmed by the fixct that the stone 
used in the building of Bemer beacon 
towards the west, in 1841, by a 
Leith contractor, was taken from 
this quarry. On this occasion he 
must have dug a water-way to ship 



the stone from it ; which seems to 
have led Captain Elder to convert 
it into a dock for his yacht. In my 
time there was no such water-way, 
although the tide when at its height 
merely entered it by a less than rill- 
like channel, which seems to have 
been made to get rid of the water 
gathering in it. It must have made 
an admirable dock of the kind, as it 
is almost completely surrounded by 
high lands ; and it doubtless pre- 
sents an interesting sight to a stranger 
when he views the yacht so securely 
protected in so unexj^ected a place. 
Frequently I would go on Satur- 
day afternoons to the neighbourhood 
of St. Margaret's bay with the Cru- 
icks' ploughman. Once I recollect 
being with him, a little towards 
Rosyth, when he stopped his cart 
and pointed out the spot where, on 
passing long before daybreak for 
Charlestown for a load of lime, he 
was attacked by a bulldog coming out 
of a tinker's tent, when he took his 
"gully" and cut its throat. He dis- 
played such feeling in his narrative 
as to leave in my mind no doubt of 
the truth of his assertion, which I 
listened to with awe. 

On another occasion we went 
there, with Bob and Jess, tandem 
fasliion, for a load of sea-sand. On 
arriving on the beach, the plough- 
man abruptly exclaimed, " Dear me, 
see how they fought till they killed 
each other," pointing to two dead 
yellow-hammers. " No," said I, with 
my familiarity with " scuffling," 
" that was not a fight ; for had it 
been a fight the sand would have 
been disturbed, and the birds ' tou- 
sled.' " Some time before this it was 
asserted by the boys at the school 
that no one had ever found a dead 
sparrow. As these birds were very 
numerous about our place, as I have 
already said (p. 40), I thought I 
could find one, and sought diligently 
for it, without success. And so the 
finding of the two dead yellow-ham- 
mers attracted my special attention 
in regard to their condition and sur- 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



58 

ronndings ; but I could form no 
opinion on what was always a mys- 
tery to me. The birds lay very close 
together on sand that had not been 
disturbed by the elements since a 
high tide had passed over it some 
days before ; in which condition the 
sand on the seashore always presents 
an attractive appearance. Nor did 
a feather of the birds present a ruf- 
fled or soiled api)earance. How 
then did these two cock yellow-ham- 
mers get there ? Such birds do not 
frequent the beach, away from where 
they nest, and particularly for the 
purpose of settling disputes. If they 
had been washed ashore by the tide, 
by what coincidence had they found 
their way into the sea, and been 
landed on the beach, almost touch- 
ing each other, head to head ?* 

On another occasion when at the 
tollhouse at St. Margaret's bay, late 
in the evening, I got on the back of 
a gentleman's caniage going to the 
Ferry, and left it just before it enter- 
ed the village, without being annoyed 
by any envious boy crying, " whip 
behind," for we did not even see a 
living creature of any kind on the 
way. I inunediately started across 
the hills for home, and, as was my 
invariable custom, looked over the 
dyke to take a view of Port Laing 
sands, when I noticed, in the dusk of 
the evening, the only rabbit I ever 
saw on the peninsula. There were 
rabbit holes, and the usual indica- 
tions of rabbits, but to me it was a 
surprise that I never met with one, 
although I always kept a sharp look- 
out for it. There was no place that 
would ai)parently suit for a rabbit- 
warren, so that the rabbits seemed to 
have got scattered, and to have kept 
imder ground during the day. Under 
any circumstances they could not 
be numerous, and more especially as 
weasels were plentiful, and would 
keep down the rabbits, as they did 

*The yellow-hammer in Scotland gen- 
erally is called the yorling, but in some 
places, as in Inverkeithing, the " yite." 
The male is a "little prince " of a bird. 



the rats about our place. The 
ground was common to almost any 
one, and there was not even the ap- 
pearance of game-preserving ; not- 
withstanding which hares were often 
met with, while formerly, by my 
father's account, they were numer- 
ous ; and 1 recollect him pointing 
out the spot where he had "got one 
with each barrel." Sometimes, but 
not very often, a covey of partridges 
would be raised. 

Adders (pronounced "ethers") or 
vipers were frequently met with near 
our place, where, as I have said be- 
fore (p. 9), they had been numer- 
ous. With this animal I was famil- 
iar from my earliest recollection ; 
and the allusion to it, or to any of 
the serpent tribe, at once attracts 
my attention. The last one I recol- 
lect seeing was inmiediately behind 
our house. It was lying upon the 
bare earth that connected the lower 
with the higher level of an abrupt 
breaking of the ground, and that 
had become warm by the rays of 
the sun. I was on my way to join 
my sisters near Port Laing sands, 
but I instantly stopped and made a 
detour to reach the place where they 
were. It was not a single viper I 
was afraid of, but of others that 
rnighirbe there.* 

♦ I have written considerably on the 
subject of vipers (and certain other 
snakes) " swallowing their young," which 
has been denied by some people inter- 
esting themselves in natural history, al- 
though it is as much a fact as anything 
can be. This may be said to be the most 
interesting trait in the snake family, 
which should not be allowed to remain 
an open question. A further importance 
attaches to it as illustrative of the laws 
of evidence, that is, whether it or any 
other question should be decided accord- 
ing to evidence, or by the preconceived 
ideas of the world, the popular belief 
is in the affirmative, which makes it in- 
teresting to know how it originated. 
Then we have the evidence of people 
who have seen old snakes open their 
mouths and give refuge to their progeny, 
and taken them out of them. This they 
have done with oviparous snakes, whose 
eggs are hatched iji the soil. Viviparous 



REMINISCENCES OF IN VERKEI THING. 



59 



The birds about our house were 
principally house and hedge or field 
sparrows, robins and wrens, black- 
birtls and thrushes, chaffinches and 
green linnets. All these were nu- 
merous. At a greater or less dis- 
tance from the house they were, for 
tlie most part, and in considerable 
numbers, gray and rose linnets, yel- 
low-hammers, and a bird called a 
'• chir-maftit," that is, a mean-looking 
little bird, of a light brown colour, 
that generally built its nest, of long 
dry grass, among scraggy bramble 
bushes, near the road-side. When 
approached, its cry of "chir-iit" 
would be heard sometimes on this 
side of the road, and sometiuies on 
that, without it making itself visible ; 
which was so provoking that it would 
be stoned, and sometimes have its 
nest destroyed. 

Skylarks and titlarks (called " tit- 
lies") were numerous. There was a 
considerable resemblance between 
the colours of their eggs, but those 
of the former were much the largest, 
while its nest was in its construction 
very inferior to that of the other. 
Titlarks would build their nests on 
the sides of ditches having a grass 
facing, or at the roots of whin sprouts, 
or such places. Skylarks were rather 
promiscuous in that respect. When 
the nest was in the midst of anything 
growing over or around it, the bird 
always alighted a little from it, and 

snakes are born either as the eggs are 
being dropped on the ground, or by their 
wriggling out of them after touching it ; 
which makes it impossible that the young 
of the viper, contained in eggs about the 
size of those of a blackbird, and measur- 
ing at birth about four aud a half or five 
inches, could have been taken out of a 
mother, by White of Selborne, free of 
the eggs, and upwards of seven inches in 
length, unless they had entered her by 
the mouth. 

(3bjections have been advanced that 
the phenomenon is impossible, for the 
reason that there is no room in the 
stomach and among the vital organs iox \.\\q 
}Oung ones ; while the fact is that they 
iio not enter that part of the mother, but 
take refuge in the chamber that contain- 
ed them when in the eggs. 



by use made a well-beaten track to 
it. The birds were very little dis- 
turbed ; so much so that the two 
kinds of larks would sometimes build 
their nests very close to the footpath, 
that would generally be passed by us 
once a day in both directions. — There 
was another bird, of a much shyer 
nature than the larks, that built its 
nest on the ground. It was appar- 
ently a little larger than a house 
sparrow, and its plumage was about 
equally divided into, 1 think, red, 
white and black. It was called a 
" coal-head." I never found more 
than three nests of this species ; two 
with young ones, and one with eggs. 

Sometimes the blackbird would 
build in singular places, even inside' 
of the Lazaretto. I recollect, on 
entering it, being startled by the pe- 
culiar cry of this bird when forced to 
leave its nest. Looking up to a 
beam under the second fioor, I saw 
the nest, and a row of others in every 
stage of ruins till the last one ap- 
peared to be a little rubbish. The 
bird, in short, had built a nest every 
season, adding it to the row of the 
preceding ones. Pieces of news- 
papers were often used by this bird 
when it built on a tree. 

The robin was also sometimes ca- 
pricious as to the place in which it 
would build its nest, although it was 
never far from a dwelling. It was 
generally on the rising side of a path 

The evidence on this question I sub- 
mitted last December to the publishers 
of the Encyclopicdia Britaniiica, with 
the idea that justice will be done to it in 
the article on the Rcptilia when it ap- 
pears. In the last edition the subject 
was not noticed, cither because it was 
accidentally or purposely omitted, or 
was doubted or denied, or because the 
writer or editor would not assume the 
responsibility of maintaining the afTirma- 
tive, in the face of what he might look 
upon as the ridicule of a certain part of 
society. In the forthcoming article on 
the Reptilia, the question, it is hoped, will 
be settled "once for all," so that it may 
never again come up for discussion. If it 
is again omitted, the article will have left 
out what might be said to be " the most 
interesting trait in the snake family." 



6o 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



that was seldom used, ornear the top 
of ground that presented a broken 
edge, or under a small isolated bush; 
but never in or on anythin'g that could 
be moved, or in a field as such. One 
nest I found in long grass near a brier, 
very close to the sea, on ground that 
rose a little ; and another near the 
top of what had the appearance of 
an atteiupt at the making of an open 
well of little depth. On the other 
hand I knew of one inside of our 
disused byre. The birds entered by 
a hole in the door, and built in the 
furthest and highest part, where I 
had to lift a tile to see the progeny. 
The only time I disturbed a robin 
was under the following circum- 
stances. I was nesting behind the 
second house west of ours (the one 
that had been occupied by Mark 
Hadden and Giles), as I was on my 
way to school, when a robin sudden- 
ly flew out of the brae-side, so near 
me as almost to touch me. I had 
some trouble in finding the nest, 
which was reached by a hole, little 
Jarger than v^ould admit the bird, 
through a long and thick fringe of 
wire-like grass that hung over an 
abrupt breaking of the ground. I 
thought over the subject when at the 
school, and, notwithstanding the pop- 
ular feeling in regard to the bird, re- 
solved to catch it on my way home ; 
which I attempted by clapping my 
cap on the hole, when the robin in- 
stantly glided past me. " Two holes," 
said I in my chagrin, and, on exam- 
ining the place closely, I noticed an 
open space between the grassy fringe 
and the ground it overlapped. On 
finding that the bird had abandoned 
its eggs, I regretted what I had done ; 
although the fact of there being two 
holes made as lasting an impression 
on me as if they had been purposely 
prepared for safety.* 

* The house mentioned, I omitted to 
say, on a former occasion, was the prop- 
erty of two maiden sisters, probably 
past middle life, who owned the land on 
part of which the Lazaretto was built, as 
1 always understood. One summer, for 



The crested plover or lapwing or 
" pee-weep" did not build on the pe- 
ninsula^ although it would occasional- 
ly be seen on it singly or in pairs. I 
knew of only one wood pigeon's nest, 
on the small young plantation back of 
Port Laing sands, alluded to (pp. 27 
and 35). I have said that this piece 
of wood was " of about an acre." It 
might not have exceeded half an acre. 
It certainly was nearly square, and 
had apparently been well laid out, 
but had been neglected, for whins 
had been allowed to grow to a good 
height inside of it. 

Having so many house-sparrows 
about our place, we liad frequent 
visits from sparrow-hawks, which 
sometimes showed a wonderful te- 
merity, as the following instance wi*l 
illustrate. One evening, when it was 
nearly dusk, I noticed, from a win- 
dow in our sitting-room, one of these 
birds eating something, at a very 
short distance from the house, and I 
directed my father's attention to ir. 
It was late for almost any kind of 
bird to be abroad, and especially to 
be feeding ; but late as it was it 
could be seen that it was a sparrow- 
hawk. My father then told me to 
sit still, while he opened the door in 
sight of the bird, which faced us, and 
going behind the house passed round 
by the Lazaretto wall to take it in 
the rear. I waited patiently till he 
made his appearance, hat in hand, 
and got very near the hawk, when it 
flew away. I immediately left the 
house to see what it had been eat- 
ing, when I found that it had carried 
off its prey, leaving only a few fea- 



the purpose of sea-bathing-, they used 
the upper floor, which was entered by a 
stair behind, at a right angle with the 
building. At all other times it was un- 
occupied. These ladies were tall > and 
plain in their appearance, and unpre- 
tentious in their dress and habits. They 
were very quiet and kindly, but not in- 
clined to be social. I never was inside 
of the part of the house occupied by 
them ; and I felt disappointed at never 
having had my curiosity gratified by a 
sight of it. 



REMIYISCE.VCES OF IXVERKEITHING. 



6i 



thers behind. I could not but smile 
at the idea of a person trying to 
"catch a hawk" by getting in the 
rear of it and dro[)ping his hat over it. 

Wlien I lived at the Lazaretto I 
enjoyed to the full the charms of 
bird-nesting. But rearing of birds in 
the house was discouraged, while 
blowing and stringing their eggs was 
j)rohibited. Occasionally 1 would 
join other boys at "blind smashie," 
that is, an egg would be placed on 
the ground and we would shut our 
eyes and advance on it. But I never 
did that of my own accord. How- 
ever, I remember taking a bird that 
was pretty well fledged and putting 
it on a nest of eggs on which an- 
other had been incubating, and at a 
short distance watching the result of 
the intending mother finding another 
sitting on her eggs, when I was glad 
to put the young bird where I had 
fountl it. j 

B-ing often in the quarantine j 
watch-house, I had many stories told j 
me by the old boatmen of mermaids 
cjinbing their hair on the rocks at I 
low water. 1 really believed what ! 
these old men told me, and pictured | 
to myself these apocryphal animals on 
the island of Inclicolm ; the sound 
of the word contributing to the illu- 
sion of them '■'•combing their hair" 
on it. Now and then a seal would 
pop its head above water, which I at 
first imagined might be one of the 
mermaids. Speaking of Inchcolm, 
I might say that the island and the 
ruins on it were associated in my 
mind with feelings which it would be 
difficult to describe. 

The natural products of the Cru- 
icks' peninsula, especially in the 
neighbourhood and back of our place, 
might be said to be whin and bram- 
ble bushes and ferns ; and if cultiva- 
tion had been discontinued the 
ground would soon have become 
covered with them. Not even a 
sprig of heather did I ever find 
there. The wild fiowers that attract- 
ed us the most were bluebells and 
primroses ; .and it was our invariable 



custom to search for the first apjiear- 
ance of the latter, so that we came 
to know where to go for them. 
Bramble bushes were very common 
between our house and Port Laing 
sands; and from Henderson's dyke- 
to tiiat sandy beach the rocks on the 
seashore were fringed with what 
might be called a magnificent growth 
of them. The fruit of these we 
would occasionally use, particularly 
at the opening of the season, and on 
Saturday afternoons, when we would 
"take to the hills" during house- 
cleaning. On such occasions the 
oldest girl, who was in every way of 
a superior character, and much look- 
ed up to by the others, generally 
took the lead ; and a taste wiiich 
she had for what might be called 
botany added to the feeling of defer- 
ence which we all showed her. The 
second girl claimed the exclusive 
right to take charge of the youngest 
child, and lead or carry it, as might 
be ; and her jieaceable, disinteresteal 
and obliging disposition would have 
been sorely tried, if any of the 
others had attempted to disj^ute her 
claim. The third girl and 1 did all 
the quarreling there was, and it was 
frequent and sometimes bitter. She 
would catch at my phrases and 
actions and turn them into ridicule. 
She would say, "Watch him, just 
watch him, and you will see him 
show his airs ! " This she would do 
even before company, where she 
would keep her eye fixed on me, and 
if I even moved she would point her 
finger at me' and loudly exclaim, 
" There, he shows his airs ! " This 
was very provoking, and would have 
justified a thrashing, if I had resort- 
ed to that for redress. 

During my recollection, which ex- 
tends over 183 1-5, I do not remem- 
ber any violent winds. Our house 
was well protected from the effects 
of such by the quarantine ])remises 
on the east, and i)retty well by the 
ground in the other directions, saying 
nothing of the trees surrounding it ; 
so that, at night especially, we were 



62 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



soinctinies hardly aware of the wind 
being high. Had there been violent 
storms from the east, the effects of 
them must have been more or less 
seen on the coast back of our place 
towards the Ferry ; hut I never saw 
such. The same can be said of 
snow storms. I do not remember 
ever having been kept from going to 
school on account of them. We 
had always a method of escaping 
the effects of snow in that respect, 
for the tide swept the edge of the 
bay of it, so that we could easily go 
along it ; which, however, proved de- 
structive to shoes, in consequence 
of the effects of salt water on them. 
The state of the tide was a matter 
of constant thought ; not that it ever 
prevented us going to and returning 
from the town, but merely influenced 
us in the way by which we would do 
it. Personally it was attractive to 
me, both when I got up in the morn- 
ing, and when I left the school for 
home. And as eaily impressions 
are the most lasting, the sea in its 
ebb and flow has always been a sub- 
ject of sj^eciol interest to me. 

It would be incorrect for me to say 
that I could still go over the Cru- 
icks' peninsula blindfolded, although 
I think that, in that condition, 1 
could describe pretty correctly to one 
with me, the directions and turns of 
the roads and paths, the configuration 
of the ground, the knolls and what 
grew on them, the few trees, and the 
sunple objects on it, when I lived 
there. Even the state of the weather 
and atmosphere on certain occasions, 
and especially the snow scenes, could 
be recalled by me. There is hardly 
a spot on it that would not elicit, not 
one but frequently several reminis- 
cences connected with it. My favour- 
ite place was the highest ridge between 
Port Laing sands and St. Margaret's 
bay, where I often sat with the Cru- 
icks' herd-boy, who was three or 
four years older than myself. 

It was near this spot that I dis- 
covered that there was such a place 
as the North Quecnsfcrry, although 



it was only about a mile from our 
place. I often heard people speak- 
ing of "the ferry," which I under- 
stood to be the one on the south 
side of the firth. 

Some time after I began to go to 
the school at Inverkeithing I hap- 
pened to say to the herd that a Ferry 
boy attending it had a long way to 
go home, pointing to the west, as if 
he had to travel around the water to 
reach it ; so crude were my ideas in 
that respect. The herd, with the 
greatest astonishment, said, "There's 
the Ferry," pointing in the direction 
of it, when I made for the brow of 
the hill and surveyed it with all the 
feelings attending a discovery. 

While on the top of the ridge men- 
tioned, a gale suddenly sprung up 
from the west, when the herd said, 
" Now we will see it strike the sea 
on the other side," where it was ])er- 
fectly smooth. Very soon the water 
became ruffled as Ib.e wind reached 
it over the hill, at quite a distance 
from the shore ; towards which it re- 
mained calm, and would have given 
ample protection to a vessel seeking 
shelter near it. 

On another occasion we picked up 
a dog that had lost its master. It 
presented a forlorn appearance when 
met with, but soon it seemed to feel 
at home in our company. Its eyes 
were of different colours. "That one," 
said the herd, " is for sheep, and this 
one for cattle"; which had some 
truth in it, as I found on meeting the 
dog the same year in Leith, when I 
asked its master if he had not lost it 
latel)^ Yes, he said, he had lost it 
on the Ferry Hills. It turned out 
that it was good for both sheep and 
cattle. 

At another time the herd said to 
me, " Come and I will show you 
something " ; and, going towards the 
dyke at the road, he lifted a piece of 
sod, and putting his hand into a hole, 
brought out a young rabbit. He had 
come across a nest of them, and, 
judging of the direction of it, cut out 
the sod and dug down to the nest, 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



and replaced the sod till the rabbits 
were old enough to be taken. This 
was the only nest of rabbits I knew 
of on the peninsula, although I had 
heard of other boys occasionally 
finding them. The sight of the young 
rabbits interested me greatly ; nor 
could I help observing how cunning- 
ly the old rabbit had closed the 
mouth of the hole by throwing back 
the earth on it, and what skill or ex- 
]>erience it required to find a rabbit's 
nest. 

One day he showed me a i^retty 
large stone supported by many small 
sticks, and asked me if I knew how 
he had succeeded in doing it. On 
confessing my ignorance he knocked 
it over, and ])ropped it up with small 
stones, which he removed as he in- 
serted the sticks in their place, till 
the large stone appeared as when 
first shown to me. 

Some time after this there were op- 
position steamers — I think the Stir- 
liiii; Castle and the Dumbarton Castle 
— running between Leith (Newha- 
ven j and Stirling, both starting at the 
same time from Newhaven, pretty 
well on in the evening. It was al- 
ways interesting to us to see them 
approach and pass the Ferry, par- 
ticularly as each of us had his favour- 
ite boat, and wished it success. 
This was the first racing between 
steamers that I saw. 

A brotlier of this boy, when at the 
jilace mentioned, one day wished to 
get some milk from one of the cows, 
to mix with peasemeal to feed a nest 
of (Irooi)ing birds that he carried 
about with him, in a small, round re- 
ceptacle made of twisted straw, and 
having a lid. Both of us knew that 
th's was an unpardonable otTense ; 
still, with the dread of Nell, at the 
farm-house, before us, we managed to 
catch and hold the cow for the pur- 
l)ose wanted. 

One day on going home from 
school along the beach I noticed 
thnt it was strewn with " garvies," 
which had been washed ashore ; and 
that each wave landed some still 



63 



in life. With the latter I filled my 
pocket-handkerchief, with a view to 
treating our cat, if no other use 
would be made of them. On passing 
the ruinous houses near the edge of 
the bay, so frequently alluded to, I 
stopped to have some gossij:) with the 
herd-boy, and put my bundle of fish 
on the ground, and moved further up 
the hill with him. On leaving for 
home I found that one of the cows 
had just finished swallowing both fish 
and handkerchief. It was then I first 
learned that cows will eat fish, partly, 
I dare say, for the salt contained in 
them, of which they are fond ; and 
yet I do not remember ever having 
seen the cows "salted" at the farm- 
house. It seems that that is never 
or hardly ever done in Scotland, al- 
though I found pieces of rock-salt in 
fields in which sheep were kept ; 
l)laced there apparently for their 
use. 

I have said (p. 7) that the Cru- 
icks' farm-house " stood about a 
third of a mile from the Lazaretto." 
It might have been half a mile. I 
was ot"ten there, and I have a very 
fair recollection of h.ow the farm was 
managed, and what kinds of work 
were done when the weather would 
not admit of anything being attended 
to out-of-doors, and particularly in 
regard to making straw-iope for 
thatching the following season. Mes- 
sages between our house and that of 
the farm were generally carried by 
me ; but anything of weight was 
borne by the maid. One morning, 
either because she had got up late or 
was very busy with her work, I was 
asked to go for the family's milk, 
with a tin pitcher of a size that could 
almost hold what would fill a small 
pail. I took the path straight for the 
farm, which crossed a ploughed field, 
between it and our house ; over 
which, to the extent of about a fourth 
of the whole distance, we always ex- 
ercised the right of way, whatever 
might have been sown or planted on 
it. I noticed that the ground was 
so wet and slippery that 1 could not 



[REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



64 



safely return by it with my burden. 
On leaving the farm-house with the 
nu'lk, Nell expressed a doubt whether 
I could carry it home, when I said 
that I thought I could do it ; and 
she stood at the door looking at me 
for a short time after I left it. In 
place of going straight to our house 
l)y the way I came, I turned to the 
lefr, and walked on the grass as 
far as Pinkie well, near the beach, 
from which a path led to our house ; 
thus forming two sides of a triangle, 
and making the distance to be trav- 
elled considerably greater than by the 
way I set out. What with the weight 
carried, and not being accustomed to 
such work, I felt completely " done 
up"; and so I put the pitcher on a 
grassy spot, nearly surrounded by 
whin bushes, and started for home, 
after seeing that neither " beast nor 
body" was within sight, and casting 
a look behind to see that it remained 
as 1 had placed it. The maid was 
sent to bring it home, and 1 was told 
that she found it safe, but the milk 
spilt. Whether that was true or not, 
I was rewarded for my pains by being 
dubbed " Coup the milk " for many 
days. For the future my only thought 
in regard to the milk was to see that 
I got my share of it, however it was 
brought into the house. 

1 have frefjuently alluded to the 
herds, some of whom were really de- 
cent lads, but occasionally there 
would be, in every sense -of the word, 
a "blackguard boy" among them. 
Indeed many distinguished Scotch- 
men have herded cows in their youth. 
The very word " herd-boy," as ap- 
plicable to Scotland, stirs in my 
breast a feeling of sympathy, as I 
know well what it means, having 
come next to being one myself. Gen- 
erally I had no others outside of our 
family even to speak to near home. 
Their employment was a monoto- 
nous one ; and glad were they to 
meet one besides the dumb creatures 
they attended to. The feelings of 
association were mutual. My father's 
official, personal, and social stand- 



ing in such a small community al- 
ways secured for me the boys' respect- 
ful regard in every way ; and in re- 
turn I treated them with kindness. 
However quarrelsome I nu'ght have 
been with others, I never had the 
heart to be so with the herd-boys ; 
but I would be of service to them in 
many ways. If they built their fires 
near our house, I would find them 
lights and coal. In that respect I 
was once rather too kind to them, 
for I appropriated to their (and my 
own) use a piece of peat that served 
the purj^ose of cleaning the irons for 
dressing clothes. This had become 
hard and glazed by age and use ; and 
although it was missed, susi)icion did 
not fall on me, and as nothing was 
said to me about it, I also kept silent 
on the subject. 

Saturday afternoons were the usu- 
al times when we would have our 
fires, which were generally at a brae- 
side, or in some way more or less 
sheltered, yet so that the herd-boy 
could keep his eye on his charge 
when he happened to be with us. 
We would on such occasions roast 
shell-fish — crabs, limpets, and whelks 
— and potatoes and mushrooms, ac- 
cording to the season, dispensing 
with tea and supi)er in consecjuence ; 
and we would linger over the fires 
till it would get so late that the maid 
would be sent in search of us. 

Speaking of fires in the fields re- 
minds me of getting a light before 
lucifer matches were invented or had 
come into use. The invariable cus- 
tom was to prepare the kitchen fire 
for the morning by letting it get pret- 
ty well down before retiring for the 
night, and placing on it a thick piece 
of coal nearly of the size of the grate, 
and drawing the cinders and ashes 
around the edges of it. \\\ the morn- 
ing the coal would generally be about 
two-thirds burned, and the rest of it 
so dry and infiammable that on being 
broken up in the morning a good fiie 
could be easily made. If the "gath- 
ering coal" happened to go out, a 
light would be got by going to a 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



neighbour with alantern ready for use. 
A very important thing in using coal 
was to lay aside such pieces of it as 
would suit for "gathering" or "rest- 
ing" purposes. 

But the primitive mode of getting 
a light was by using flint and steel 
and tinder, and "spunks," that is, as 
I have already said, " splints of wood 
dipped in brimstone." I do not re- 
member having noticed this appara- 
tus in our house ; I certainly never 
saw it used there. But I often wit- 
nessed the getting of a light in this 
way by the boatmen in the quaran- 
tine watch-house. They would pro- 
duce a small tin box with a lid, inside 
of which were some burned or char- 
red rags, which would catch the spark 
coming from the flint and steel. This 
would be gently blown upon after a 
little of the tinder had been drawni 
together by the " spunk," the sulphur 
at the end of which would produce 
the light wanted. Getting a light in 
this way was an easy matter after 
daybreak ; but it must have been 
different in the dark, although neces- 
sity and use lessened what would be 
found on trial to be a trouble nowa- 
days. Getting a light out-of-doors 
was by flint and steel or the back of 
a pocket-knife blade and a piece of 
match, that is, loose-made paper that 
had been steeped in salti)etre, or rub- 
bed by bruised and moistened gun- 
l)owder. This mode doubtless is 
still occasionally used by old people 
when ligluing their pipes. 

In the watch-house, as I might 
have said on a former occasion, there 
were two boatmen who lived, that is, 
cooked and slept there after the 
cholera in 1832, and left it some 
time in 1833, One of them, who 
was much younger than the other, 
did not present a single salient point 
(excepting his large size) by which I 
could remember him ; even his name 
I do not recollect, if 1 ever heard it. 
The other one was a gray-haired man 
who was generally spoken of as " Old 
John Hamilton," and was pretty-well 
liked. He was always neatly-dressed 



65 



in blue cloth, and was very tidy in his 
person. This might have been his 
Sunday "rig," for all the work he 
had to do. With much of the " sea- 
dog " in his countenance, he was con- 
siderably shrunken in the lower part 
of his body. He had arrived at that 
age when a discharge on a pension 
was soon to be expected. Latterly 
these two men had nothing to do but 
"kill" their time in the best way they 
could. Most of it was spent in pac- 
ing to and fro, sometimes on one side 
of the Lazaretto wall and some- 
times on the other ; and, when the 
weather was cold, in slapping their 
hands under their arm-pits, to keep 
their blood in circulation when in the 
open air. Sometimes they would 
gossip on the pier with Andrew 
Stewart, the pilot, as he made his ap- 
pearance with his Norwegian skiff 
and spy-glass. So far as 1 noticed 
they were not readers. The uncer- 
tainty of the continuance of the quar- 
antine establishment doubtless fret- 
ted them ; and old John, who had 
naturally a voice that both creaked 
and croaked, showed it i)eculiarly in 
his querulous impatience about his 
official disjjosal. "Any news from 
Borrowstounness? " (the local ofli- 
cial headquarters) was his constant 
question ; and he harped so much 
on this one string, that even a child 
got tired of hearing the word men- 
tioned.* John's age, face, and voice 
and slightly boisterous way evidently 
made him "cajitainof the watch," 
and left the other little to say on 
almost any occasion. 

According to McCulloch's Com- 
mercial Dictionary (1869), there are, 
at least were, eiglit places in England 
for vessels performing quarantine : 
and two in Scotland — Inverkeithing 
Bay for the east coast of Scotland, 
and Holy Loch in the Firth of Clyde, 
for the west coast. The vessels des- 
tined for the Inverkeithing Station 
during the cholera of 1832 either 

* John's pronunciation of the word 
was Borstonness, which was the current 
one in the place. Nowadays it is Ep'ne«s„ 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



proceeded direct to St. Margaret's 
Hjpe after being boarded at Leith, 
or first hove to a little to the south 
and east of the Lazaretto before go- 
ing there. I recollect my father say- 
ing that on a foreign vessel not 
'• heaving to " he ordered one of the 
boatmen to raise a musket, when 
those on board instantly dipped be- 
low the bulwarks, but soon peered 
over the edge of them, and again dis- 
aj^peared at the sight of it, till they 
came to understand what was want- 
ed. This musket was doubtless un- 
loaded and carried under the regula- 
tions adopted before or during the 
long wars, so recently ended, and 
still continued in force. 

The only occasion I remember of a 
vessel " riding quarantine " at St. 
Margaret's Hope after 1832 was one 
bound for Leith from Alexandria, 
about 1842. Her English owners, 
in anliciinition of her arrival, at first 
wished her to conform with the reg- 
ulations at Standgate Creek, in or 
near the Thames, not knowing that 
St. Margaret's Hope, about twelve 
miles distant, was so convenient 
for the vessel. She had on board 
some ilax, which was one of the enu- 
merated articles " considered as 
most liable to infection'" ; and even 
then I think she was detained only 
about fourteen days, while the term 
"quarantine" implies forty days or 
six weeks. From the fact of the 
Lazaretto at Lnverkeithing having 
been abolished, it is presumed that 
the same took place at the other 
Stations ; and that quarantine is now 
■occasionally performed by vessels 
•remaining a certain time, according 
to circumstances, separated from 
the community, like the one referred 
to at St, Margaret's Hope. 

For some time j^revious to the 
rcholera of 1832, the services of my 
father at the Lazaretto could not 
have been much more than nom- 
■inal ; and it is difficult to imagine 
how he and the boatmen could have 
managed to pass their time. I knew, 
.ae a matter ui' tradition, that, while 



the public service was doubtless well 
attended to, there had been frequent 
excursions in the neighbourhood ; 
which the boatmen were apt to en- 
joy, especially when eating and 
drinking made part of them. 1 re- 
member the api)earance of the boat 
used on such occasions. It was 
large in size, full in the beam, not 
high above the water-line, very con- 
veniently seated towards the stern, 
and of a handsome model, but ap- 
parently not lieavy enough for man- 
of-war purposes ; the very ideal of a 
boat for pleasure excursions. The 
annual expense connected with the 
establishment, including the feu duty 
or ground rent, did not i:)robably ex- 
ceed _;^4oo, while the original cost 
of the buildings might not have ex- 
ceeded ^1,200, or ;^i,5oo at the 
most ; not a heavy burden for the 
whole of the east coast of Scotland. 

My acquaintance with the " wide 
world" at this time extended no 
further than strolling over the Cru- 
icks' Peninsula, and going to and 
returning from school, with the fol- 
lowing cxcej)tions, not including 
three trips to Rosyth Castle, and vis- 
iting Limekilns, as mentioned. 

One day I arranged for an ex- 
pedition to Fordel with the two boys 
in whose company I found my way 
into the school porch (p. 37), to get 
bark to make bird-lime, which I 
think was the only really lawless ad- 
venture I engaged in. At this tmie 
Fordel was in the possession of Ad- 
miral Sir Philip Durham ; three of 
the children of whose factor attend- 
ed the school I did. St. Davids 
was the shipping port for the coal 
mined on the estate, if it did not be- 
long to it. The harbour was small, 
but convenient in every way, and 
well protected from every wind, and 
of easy access. I believe it admitted 
vessels of 600 tons ; the tide re- 
ceding a very little way from the end 
of the pier, if it even did that. 
There was a house with a circular- 
like front, painted white, facing the 
Lazaretto, and in which there was a 



liETJIXISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



67 



dear light at night, which attracted 
our special notice. To the left were 
some salt-i)ans that sent up a heavy 
volume of smoke. Above these, 
and nestling under the eastern side 
of Letham wooded hill, was a farm- 
house occupied by a widow, three of 
whose children attended the school 
I went to. But I never had my curi- 
osity gratified in regard to the ap- 
pearance of the ground behind St. 
Davids. 

I have said (p. 27) that "Scotch 
boys then were not partial to visiting 
places that were strange to them, un- 
less when with others that were 
familiar with them," as "they be- 
came suspicious of everybody and 
everything, when strolling out of what 
might be called their districts." 
The two boys mentioned lived a 
little in the direction of Fordel, and 
were i:)retty-well known there. We 
first visited the factor's house, which 
seemed an awkward-looking building, 
facing an open space, with its back 
towards Inverkeithing. After going 
there as friends, we proceeded on 
our return to get the bark in the 
*' policy " on the western side of a 
pretty-wide road that led in the direc- 
tion of St. Davids. I was not 
aware of the kind of bark that was 
wanted, and when 1 found that it 
was of the holly, I hesitated in touch- 
ing it from my regard to it, as we 
had only one of the kind at our 
place ; and it was nuich prized for 
its brilliant green leaves, which were 
strong and armed all round with 
hard and sharp spikes, — a protection 
in itself, and a notice to people not 
to touch it. Then there were its 
beautiful red berries during the win- 
ter. When everything else was bare, 
this evergreen presented a lovely ap- 
])earance, and especially in the snow. 
While nature seemed dead, the holly 
appeared alive, and, excepting the 
ivy, was the only evergreen we had. 
I was still more attached to this tree 
(if tree it could be called), which 
was inside of the Lazaretto wall, 
from having found almost immediate- 



ly under it a robin's nest, which I 
watched from the time it contamed 
eggs till the young took flight, if 
I had had any idea that by stri])ping 
the stem of the holly of its bark, 
the tree would be destroyed, I 
would doubtless not have touched it. 
As it was, I got the two boys to act as 
sentinels while I cut the bark from 
the tree, and divided the spoil. I 
was told that the bird-lime was made 
by boiling and beating the bark ; and 
so I attempted the operation, which 
came to nothing, as I was not allow- 
ed the use of a pot at home, and 
had the bark thrown out-of-doors. 

When at school the boys men- 
tioned kept showing me walnuts, and 
their hands stained with the husks of 
them, without taking me into their 
confidence as to where they had got 
them ; which was a breach of what 
was an understanding between us, 
that we were to share in everything. 
It was some time before I learned 
that the nuts were got from trees at 
Balbougie farm-house ; but when I 
went there with another boy in search 
of them I was too late, for not one 
was to be seen on the trees or on the 
ground. As it was, this small walnut 
grove proved lo me the " end of the 
earth" in that direction. The name 
of this fine farm always sounded pleas- 
antly to me. It was tenanted by a 
short and thick-set oldish man, who 
had two boys at our school, and who 
always occujiied the " seat of hon- 
our" at the examination of it. 

Scott's Mill was reached by going 
from the Boreland farm along the 
" cast," that is, water led from the 
dam there to the distillery. I was 
only twice at this mill, the first time 
being to buy rabbits. It was driven 
by water that came from the direction 
of Fordel. When I heard of Hercu- 
les cleaning a stable by turning a riv- 
er into it, I thought that that was no 
great " labour," for it would have 
been an easy matter to have turned 
the "cast" into Inverkeithing mill- 
dam, and " mucked the byre " at- 
tached to the bridge there, in which 



68 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



were kept oxen belonging to the dis- 
tillery. At Scott's Mill there lived a 
boy who was lost in the steamship 
President on her return voyage from 
New York, while acting as second or 
third engineer, in the early part of 
1841, I have a very distinct recol- 
lection of him in 1835, and can al- 
most recall the sound of his voice. 
He sat on one of the most advanced 
forms (holding two scholars each), 
facing the two end windows, his being 
next the church. He was a good- 
looking boy, neatly dressed in light- 
coloured moleskin ; was a good schol- 
ar, fairly jieaceable, and well-be- 
haved ; and was of a superior char- 
acter, but with a good share of con- 
fidence in himself, and faultfinding in 
others. I recollect how sadly I felt 
on hearing of his early and pitiful end. 
The little mill mentioned, situated as 
it were in the vale, presented a sleepy- 
looking object in the landscape. Its 
dam was a subject of interest to me, 
owing to its being frequented by 
"water hens," which stirred my cu- 
riosity to see in what respect they 
difitered from ordinary hens ; but I 
never had it gratified, nor the oppor- 
tunity of tracing the water towards its 
source. 

The little village called Hillend, 
near the upper end of Letham Hill 
(which is said to be now entirely oc- 
cupied by Irish), is associated in my 
memory mainly with its teacher, of 
the name of Scotland, having been 
thrashed by his scholars ; and by the 
second boy of the family asking "if 
it was Scotland o' Hillend that was 
told to draw the sword," on hearing 
our maid singing, " Draw the sword, 
Scotland." It was also the head- 
quarters of a rather peculiar man who 
" whipped the cat " around the coun- 
try, that is, tailored from house to 
house. 

My last expedition was to Dun- 
fermline, in the latter part of the 
summer of 1835, in comi)any with 
my parents and two oldest sisters, 
while the youngest one was left at 
home. On our way to it my father 



on cutting a switch from a hedge was 
gruffly taken to task for it by a 
ploughman, who was immediately 
" placated " by him saying, " Come 
to my place and cut as many switches 
as you please." We passed through 
the arch at the Abbey on our way to 
" Inglis'," a famous dealer in all kinds 
of " soft goods," whose shop, on a 
pretty-wide street, looked towards the 
Forth, perhaps on a line leading to 
St. Margaret's Bay or Rosyth Castle. 
I was accustomed to the little cribs 
of shops at Inverkeithing ; but when 
I entered Inglis' large establishment, 
in which were a number of well- 
dressed men bare-headed, I instantly 
took off my cap, and was sharply told 
by my father to put it on ; so that I 
erred on the safe side on that occa- 
sion. Various purchases were made 
jjreparatory to our leaving for Leith, 
among which was a pair of braces for 
my father, which 1 remember partic- 
ularly, owing to having seen him a 
short time before repairing his old 
ones. Another purchase was blue 
cloth to make a suit for the third boy 
of the family, who had just recovered 
from an attack of typhus fever, as 
mentioned (p. 43). On my asking 
why the articles purchased were not 
bought in Inverkeithing, I was told 
that nothing but trash could be got 
there, and that "Inglis'" was the 
place to go to for such goods. The 
same might have been said of the 
local tailor, who was told to make 
the child's clothes " pretty big for a 
growing laddie"; for we were all 
mortified, on arriving at Leith, at see- 
ing good cloth converted into a 
wretched garment, when the very pre- 
possessing child — with his blue eyes, 
curly fair hair, and rosy complexion — 
entitled him to at least what would 
have looked decent. 

After doing our shopping we went 
to a place for refreshments, which did 
not consist of a great variety, as mut- 
ton pies were the only things to be 
had in the way of pastry. On our 
way home we were overtaken by the 
two doctors who had attended the 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



child mentioned, riding in a gig, when 
a conversation ensued, during which 
I got close to the gig and applied my 
hand to the spokes of one of the 
wheels as it revolved. They seemed 
to think that I was fishing for a ride, 
for they stopped the gig and asked 
me to get into it, which I did with 
great celerity.* We soon left the 
I^edestrians far behind. I got out at 
the foot of the hill that led to Inver- 
keithing, and made for home by cross- 
ing the high ground where there was 
a gap opposite the road along the 
beach that Jed to our house. Riding 
in a gig, and between two doctors at 
that, had such an effect upon me that 
I was in a humour to quarrel with 
anybody ; but as I met no one on 
the way, I innnediately sought out 
my youngest sister, with whom I had 
always an open or running account 
in that line. I have said that she 
would "catch at my phrases and ac- 
tions and turn them into ridicule " 
(p, 6i). Among the former J re- 
men)ber that I used to ask, not mere- 
ly if a thing was for eating, or swal- 
lowing, but "is this for swallowing 
over your throat ? " When she saw 
me eating anything outside of a meal 
she would say, "Oh, yes, that's for 
swallowing over your throat 1 " I 
found that during our absence at 
Dunfermline she had made jelly from 
brambles, and had it nicely set out in 
dishes in the open air, waiting the ar- 



* One of these doctors, of the name of 
B , had succeeded to the local prac- 
tice of the one mentioned as having acted 
for the Government during the cholera, 
and who had recently left for America 
(pp. 36, 42, and 45); on which occasion 
there was a strong feeling shown by the 
inhabitants on losing him. The three 
members of our family mentioned (p. 43), 
were among the new doctor's first pa- 
tients. The two girls he managed easily, 
but he had to call in a well-known Dun- 
fermline doctor of the name of D , 

{the other one in the gig), in the case of 
the boy, which was a very critical one. 
For a barber to shave his head they got 
the old Inverkeithing weaver whom I 
have alluded to on two occasions (pp. 17 
and 49). 



69 



rival of her two sisters. On this oc- 
casion I did not ask if what I saw 
was for " swallowing over your 
throat," but did it without ceremony, 
thus "showing my airs" in the most 
offensive manner. It would be hard 
to say which of us was most to blame 
in these squabbles. Even when she 
would voluntarily help me at my les- 
sons at night, which she often did, es- 
pecially when writing "meanings," 
that is, the definition of words, it 
would be "cat and dog " between us. 
At night she would also prettily sing 
duets with my oldest sister, which 
were greatly improved by attending 
a singing class, along with other three 
of the family, including myself, of 
whom nothing could be made, ex- 
cept that I would appreciate and en- 
joy the singing of others. The teach- 
er was a "professor" from Dunferm- 
line, of the name of R , whose 

class was in the top story of the town- 
hall of Inverkeithing, on the floor of 
which he chalked his music, in place 
of on aboard against the wall. One 
day we had him to dinner, when he 
brought my oldest sister's piano, and 
it was then I first had an opportunity 
of closely observing a " singing man." 
He gave us during the afternoon and 
evening both playing and singing in 
abundance, which I greatly admired, 
as well as the way in which he en- 
joyed his dinner and toddy. He was 
about or past middle lite, medium in 
height, pursy in person, and a bon-vi- 
vant in his habits. 

I recollect having been at one time 
in "perfect accord" with my young- 
est sister, but it did not last long. 
Of the Lazaretto I have said that 
" the last use I made of the place 
was to kill, for the table, the rab- 
bits I had running at large " (^p. 20). 
My father had fixed a day for doing 
that, but my youngest sister, the 
night before, suggested to me that 
we should get up early in the morn- 
ing and do it. Her proposal as- 
tonished me, but I instantly entered 
into it with spirit. I do not recollect 
who awoke the other, but we got up 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



70 



very early for the work. She armed 
herself with a long stick, with which 
she smote one of the rabbits over the 
back, when I said, " Hold on, that's 
not the way to kill a rabbit"; and 
seizing the disabled one by the hind 
legs, I gave it a sharp blow behind the 
ears with the outside edge of the hand. 
" That's the way to do it," I con- 
tinued, and told her to help me to 
catch the others, which were disposed 
of in the same way. After getting 
through with our job, by which we 
earned our breakfasts, we looked at 
each other as if we had been crim- 
inals, and I agreed to say nothing 
of her in connection with it. With 
niuch misgiving on my part, I carried 
my load of dead rabbits to my father, 
without a remark of any kind, when 
he, with the greatest good-humour, 
merely asked me if I had got theni 
all — apparently pleased that I had 
saved him trouble. When the rab- 
bits were brought to the table, my 
assistant in the killing of them 
craned her neck to get a sight of 
them, and instantly left the room, 
for the reason that she was sick and 
could eat nothing ; so that to allay 
the alarm, I had to explain matters. 
1 had no such squeamishness ; per- 
haps for the reason of the rabbits 
having been running at large, so dif- 
ferent from what might have been 
the case, had they been kept in a 
hutch. 

I have frequently alluded to Mr. 
Cathcart's house at St. Margaret's, 
which was built some time after 1829, 
about which year he occupied our 
house for sea-bathing, as mentioned 
(p. 6). There was this peculiarity 
about the house, that it could not be 
seen from the land, except from near 
Is-osyth Castle. From it there was a 
fine view of both sides of the Forth 
to the west, the sunsets being pe- 
culiarly attractive.* At first it was 

* I sometimes saw fine sunsets as well 
as moonlight scenes while looking west 
from near this place. The five or six 
large quarantine liulks had a very strik- 
ing appearance on such occasions. In 



very much exposed from the lack of 
trees, which led a person, while on 
the steamboat on the way to Stirling, 
and in the hearing of Mr. Cathcart, 
to make a very disparaging remark 
in regard to its owner, but which I 
need not repeat. By having occu- 
l)ied our house, a close intimacy and 
friendship sprung up between him 
and my father, who was often at his 
house till the day we left the neigh- 
bouihood. Mr. Cathcart had in- 
deed no great choice of neighbours, 
which seems to have led him to 
ai:)preciate my father, who, with- 
out any apparent personal pretense 
of the nature to be offensive, or de- 
sire for society, was yet suitable for 
any company into which he might 
enter. It was always an interesting 
sight to see Mr. Cathcart and his 
young fiimily walking to church (for 
ihey never drove to It). Frequently, 
as they left St. Margaret's bay, and 
we went along the beach of Inver- 
keithing bay, we would meet on our 
way to church ; or, the one company 
would walk slowly for the other to 
make up to it on the occasion. Mr. 
Cathcart was a very tall, handsome, 
fine-looking, and dignified man, who 
had a habit of lifting his hat and 
wiping his forehead in warm weather. 
His wife, who was matronly in her 
figure, and of a fair height, looked 
short when walking alongside of him. 
The daughters, I think, were of a 
pretty-fair complexion, and seemed 
to "take after" their mother. The 
oldest son, who was tall of his age 
and fine-looking, wore a tall white 
beaver hat, and appeared of a differ- 
ent order from the boys of the neigh- 
bourhood. Brown seemed to be the 
favourite colour of the family in the 
matter of dress. 

It must have been shortly after 
Mr. Cathcart's house was built that I 



the graveyard of Limekilns there is said 
to be the tombstone of a sea-faring man, 
with An inscription beginning with the 
words, "At anchor now in death's dark 
road — " in evident allusion to St. Mar- 
garet's Hope in front of the place. 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



n 



was first at it with my parents, possibly 
on some such occasion as " house- 
heating," for I remember but two 
circumstances connected with the 
visit, which might be called " salient 
points." I was naturally excited 
when going to a house of that kind, 
and felt astonished at seeing a horse 
inside of it, on the door being 
opened; for up to this time I had 
never seen anything in the imitation 
of a horse, except a small toy on 
wheels, or something in a shop win- 
dow that could be eaten. This 
seemed to me a real horse in the 
lobby, which was very roomy, com- 
pared to the narrow passage into our 
little house, on the right hand side 
of which hung a heavy navy pistol 
and a marine's cartridge-box. When 
I saw how the horse " ran," I soon 
got on its back, and behaved very 
much like a certain personage when 
mounted on a real one. The other 
" salient point " was quite in keeping 
with this one, for, as I got through 
with my tea (it being an afternoon 
visit), 1 bawled out, " Mamma, I'm 
done," which caused an instant 
silence, and led all present to look 
in my direction, and the lady of the 
house to remark, " What does he 
say ? " To this no reply was made, 
and the rudeness passed off. I was 
doubtless corrected afterwards. I 
certainly never repeated the words 
at home, and I have still a sensitive 
feeling of having committed myself 
and others on the occasion. 

Speaking of horses reminds me of 
the first one I saw, which was an old 
white one that grazed around the 
Lazaretto with the farmer's cows. It 
was too old to do work of conse- 
quence or perhaps any kind of labour. 
It had a habit of scratching itself 
more than ordinary, and as there were 
no trees there it would throw itself 
on its back and turn over and over. 
One turn was the gain of a shoe ; a 
return made a pair. I frequently 
saw it earn a complete set without 
getting on its feet ; such was the feel- 
ing and almost the belief of the herd 



and myself, who would whistle to 
help the " poor beast" in its labours. 
Of asses, called "cuddies," I recol- 
lect having seen a kind of a fight 
between a grown-up boy and one of 
them, as to whether or not it should 
be allowed to bray, when the boy ajv 
plied his hands to its mouth to pre- 
vent it. But the "cuddy" had the 
best of it, although its music was con- 
siderably marred by the attempt at 
stopping it. 

Almost immediately adjoining St. 
Margaret's, in the direction of the 
Ferry, was the little one-storied i\x\\\- 
house called the Ferry Barns, situa- 
ted on some low-lying ground near 
the sea, and not, I think, observable 
from the road above it, unless from 
the brow of the hill leading down to 
it. It was a primitive building, cov- 
ered, if 1 mistake not, with thatch, 
and had a little garden on the west 
side of it, in which were some fine 
gooseberries, the most attractive 
things there to me. I was often 
there. This little farm-house (if such 
it could be called), and that of the 
Cruicks were the only ones in use on 
the peninsula. From the Ferry Barns 
to the school-house (in which the ten- 
ant, a very little man, had been teach- 
er), on the north side of the road, ex- 
tended the planted grjand of Cap- 
tain Macconnochie, on whose prop- 
erty I never was. 

The Ferry itself 1 have aheady al- 
luded to (pp. 55 and 62). It was 
long after 1 became aware of the ex- 
istence of the place that I ventured 
into it; but I would frecjuently go as 
far as the brow of the hill, where the 
school-house was, and look at it from 
that spot. The reason for this was 
the aversion which, as I have said, 
Scotch boys had to stray into strange 
places Gradually I got into the 
habit of sometimes stroUing there by 
going errands for ihefauiily ; on which 
occasions I held that 1 had a right to 
be there, and feeling very brave would 
say to myself, " Wlia daur meddle wi' 
me ? " One day after I had got ac- 
customed to visit the village tl.e cap- 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



7^ 

tain of the okl rickety steam ferry- 
boat told me to "jump aboard," when 
I made a trip to the South Queens- 
ferry, which was an important event 
in my experience there. 

The school at the Ferry seemed to 
meet the wants of the place, except 
that occasionally scholars from it 
would find their way to the school of 
Inverkeithing to "finish" their edu- 
cation. I recollect but six such — 
four boys and two girls. The last 
two boys were big fellows who always 
kept together, ai)parently for defence, 
fur they were never seen in the town 
except when hurrying to and from 
school, as if they dreaded the enmity 
of all belonging to the place. They 
might have been described as " Cun- 
ning and Cruelty.'' On one occasion, 
when outside of the town, they seized 
a little boy, who had perhaps insulted 
them, and crammed his mouth with 
what they found on the highway. 
The feeling between the children of 
the two places, as was conmion in 
Scotland, could not be called friend- 
ly, although it never, in niy experi- 
ence, led to actual hostilities. The 
behaviour of each set was regulated 
by their being in the camp of the 
other. Thus I remember, when at 
the Ferry with three Inverkeithing 
boys, that it was not the grown-up 
])eople nor the dogs that we were 
afraid of, but boys of our own age 
and those of a larger growth. My 
complete identity with Inverkeithing 
seems to have influenced me at first 
in my relation to the Ferry. The 
feeling alluded to was even manifest- 
ed, but in a less degree, towards the 
Ferry girls that attended our school. 
1 recollect going home from it on a 
Saturday forenoon with the two men- 
tioned — one a big, coarse-looking 
girl, almost a woman, wearing a brown 
beaver bonnet and a fur tii)pet that 
had seen better days; and the other 
a blue-eyed, rosy-cheeked, and good- 
looking girl of about my own age, in 
a green-checked tartan plaid. I 
should have left them to go home 
along the beach, while they took their 



way over the hills ; but I got to log- 
gerheads with the oldest one about 
her "expecting to ride some day in 
her carriage," when I went with them 
by the high road as far as the old 
Cruicks' farm-house, " arguing the 
question," and stood there for some 
time doing it. This was my first ex- 
perience of what is called " female 
pertinacity," for I could make noth- 
ing of her in the way of argument, al- 
though it was doubtless " mere asser- 
tion " on both sides. I almost came 
to blows with her before parting, and 
went home completely discomfited. 
There I pestered every one for sym- 
pathy, and harped on the words, " To 
think o' a muckle, coorse-looking jad 
like that riding in her carriage ! " 

At the Ferry there was an old-es- 
tablished comj^any or association of 
boatmen that might have been called 
a close corporation, before the intro- 
duction of steam. In my father's 
work on the Gipsies (which I edited 
and published in 1865), there is the 
following in reference to them : — ■ 

" So well did they [the Gipsies] pay 
their way at the village and passage 
alluded to, that the boatmen gave 
them the kindly name of ' our frien's.' 
These wanderers were all known at 
the village by the name of ' Gillie 
Wheesels.* or ' Killie Wheesh,' which 
in the west of Fife signified ' the lads 
that take the purses.' Old Thomas 
Chalmers informed me that he had 
frequently seen these sharks of boat- 
men shake these Gipsy thieves heart- 
ily by the hand, and, with a signifi- 
cant smile on their harsh, weather- 
beaten countenances, wish them a 
good market as they landed them on 
the north side of the Forth, on their 
way to picking pockets at fairs " 
(P- 173)- 

Before the introduction of a steam 
ferry-boat, these boatmen had things 
pretty much their own way ; for at- 
tempts had been made to employ 
other boatmen, which failed, in con- 
sequence of their not being familiar 
with the tides and currents in the 
gut between the ferries. In my rec- 
ollection there was still some little 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITHING. 



n 



boating done there, while the men 
perhaps eked out a Hving by tishing. 
They were frequently seen loitering 
about the light-house. The only one 
that I particularly noticed was a 
queer -looking little body, called 

"Daft W G "; but he was 

not so " daft " as not to know what 
to do with a pocket-book containing 
bank notes which he found, for it was 
reported that he " burned the book, 
but kept the bonnie pictures." 

The only " business man " living 
at the Ferry was the one who leased 
the Ferry Hills, and was extensively 
connected with the mail service and 
posting, and kept the inn, as men- 
tioned (p. 55). He was a very act- 
ive, enterprising, and successful man, 
and was well known far and wide, 
and well liked. In his manner he 
was pushing and energetic and pop- 
ular, and was quite a " character." 
It was alleged that he would enter 
his stable and kindly slap his horses 
and descant on their merits. To one 
he said, "Ay, you have earned me 
;^2oo." I once heard him say that 
when he was young he did not rest 
a moment after awaking in the 
morning, but instantly gathered his 
bed-clothes on his feet and threw 
them over the end of his bed, and 
sprung to the floor. These were two 
distinct movements, but so active was 
he in after-life that in his youth they 
might almost have passed for one. 

There was another " character " 
living at the Ferry, but often seen in 
Inverkeithing, who bore the title of 
Captain, from having been a sailing- 
master in the navy, as I always un- 
derstood, although in the neighbour- 
hood any one who had held a commis- 
sion seems to have been styled Captain 
by courtesy. Although jiretty-well 
advanced in life and hardly straight 
in his figure, he was active in his 
habits, s[)ringy in his movements, and 
buoyant in his manners. He took 
the first place in suggesting all kinds 
of improvements. In every way he 
was an object of public interest and 
even admnation, as a "wonderful! 



body," and when he met with a 
serious accident — the breakage of 
one or both legs, or some such mis- 
fortune — the feeling was that "that 
was the end of him" ; but he "got 
on his legs " as before. Most of his 
dress was in the pink of almost 
youthful fashion, with a broad- 
brimmed beaver hat that inclined 
a little towards his shoulders, and 
from under it hung a queue or pig- 
tail, while opposite that was a coun- 
tenance that was not very imposing 
in its aspect. I recollect my father 
pointing out a narrow close at the 
Ferry, in which the Captain had an 
adventure. He had gone there to 
make peace between a woman and 
her wild and drunken husband, when 
the ruffian roared and rushed for his 
gun, and the Captain made for the 
door, but, instead of running straight 
out of the close, threw or " wapped " 
himself from side to side till he 
twisted himself round the entrance 
of it, so as not to give his assailant 
(whether real or pretended) a good 
aim at him. In that respect he fol- 
lowed the regulation tactics observed 
when retreating, pell-mell, in narrow 
streets. A son of the Captain on 
returning to Leith, after a residence 
in England, said, " How do you 
people in Scotland keep your holi- 
days at Christmas?" "Just as they 
do at the North Queensferry, where 
I have been many a day," was the 
reply of a person present, who was also 
a native of the place. 

During Bonaparte's wars my father 
was a lieutenant in the volunteer ar- 
tillery stationed at the North Queens- 
ferry. I recollect him pointing out 
where the guns were placed. There 
were two batteries ; one along the 
edge of the cliff that encircled the 
village on the east of it, and one on 
a small low-lying piece or point of 
land outside of the pier that formed 
the eastern side of the little harbour. 
This battery had consisted of but two 
guns, with earth forming three small 
mounds to protect them at the sides 
only. This light earth-work had kept 



REMINISCENCES OF INVERKEITIIING. 



74 

its appearance wonderfully. Every- 
thing relating to the high battery, 
which had doubtless been of a more 
extensive, heavier, and more solid 
nature than the other one, had disap- 
peared. My father's commission, 
ei)aulets, sash, and sword were well 
taken care of, but his coat — I think 
blue with red trimmings — and hat 
were allowed to go to ruin. 

In my time the only recently-built 
houses at the Ferry were the inn 
and the school-house at the top of 
the hill. The inn was a handsome 
building, having its back so close to 
the water that it seemed to form ])art 
of the sea-line. Its inmates had thus 
the most convenient facilities for 
bathing. The school-house was of 
two stories ; the full length of the 
under one for the school-room, and 
the upper one for the teachers' dwell- 
ing, which was entered by a stair 
from the north side. The windows 
dift'ered from ordinary ones, being of 
the " cottage " order, or of some 
such description. In the school- 
room in the evenings there was fre- 
quently preaching, which seems to 
have differed from what was heard 
from the " Old Moderate " in the 
parish church. I always went there 
cheerfully except on one occasion, 
when, a little before starting for the 
place, I had the misfortune to fall 
into the sea, at the east side of the 
Lazaretto wall, and wet myself to the 
knees, but not while "gathering 
sticks," which was rigidly prohibited 
on Sundays. I said nothing of the 
occurrence, but started for church, 
while I felt most anxious for a change 
of clothing ; but it being in the 
height of summer, the disagreeable 
feeling and the danger were consider- 
ably modified. The only oldish 
building at the Ferry (excepting the 
old inn) that I took particular notice 
of, was a heavy-looking house facing 
the street, with its back to the sea, on 
the right as the village was entered from 
the west. In it resided an old gentle- 
man who had been my father's rank- 
ing officer in the volunteer artillery. 



While loitering about the Ferry 
till nearly dark, before the time of 
steam, my father noticed a ])ost- 
chaise arrive from the north in gal- 
lant style. Out of it came a young 
njan in the highest fashion, and took 
his departure for the south side, on 
his way to Edinburgh, in a ferry-boat 
that sank deep in the water with 
some heavy trunks that formed his 
luggage. After thinking over what 
he had seen, my father hired a boat 
and reported the circumstance to 
the Customs' authorities at Leith ; 
when next day the trunks were traced 
and seized, but not before some 
marks had been removed from the 
bottom of them. It turned out that 
they contained costly British lace, an 
article that had bee-n frequently ex- 
ported by a Leith mercantile house 
to Holland, in the face of Bonaparte's 
Berlin decrees, prohibiting trade with 
Great Britain ; to counteract which 
the British Government granted 
licenses to import free of duty, goods 
to the same value that were landed 
in Holland. The removal of the 
marks from the trunks ended the in- 
vestigation ; for in smuggling, as in 
murder, the goods must be produced 
and identified before an action can 
hold. Up to this time the mercan- 
tile house alluded to had been very 
successful in exporting lace (always 
lace, that was very valuable and 
easily handled) and importing the 
value of it, free of duty, as men- 
tioned, and producing certificates of 
the lace having been landed in Hol- 
land, to the astonishment and envy 
of their neighbours. But their trade 
•"at once ceased and was never re- 
sumed. A singular circumstance 
connected with the subject was, that 
the searcher who cleared the trunks 
for export found in one of them a 
pen which he had lost on the day he 
did it ; but that was not deemed suf- 
ficient evidence. It was believed 
that a fishing boat had run alongside 
of the vessel below the island of 
Inchkeith, and landed the trunks on 
the Fife coast, from which they were 



REMINISCENCES OF hYVERKEITIIING. 



75 



laken to Edinburgh in the way de- 
scribed. In that case it was possible 
that the same trunks, or the lace 
contained in them, had been the 
basis of many profitable Dutch ad- 
ventures. Had the marks on the 
trunks not been removed (which was 
probably done before they left the 
vessel), my father would doubtless 
have received a " nice sum " for his 
services. 

I bring these " Reminiscences of 
Childhood at Inverkeithing " to a 
close by saying that, after seeing the 
Esperance leave the Lazaretto pier 
with our furniture for Leith, the fatn- 
ily scattered, and passed their last 
night in the neighbourhood among 
friends and relations. 1 went with 
my three sisters to an uncle of my 
father at Limekilns. He was the 
out-port deputy-collector or coast- 
officer of the Customhouse at Bo'ness, 
and dwelt in the eastern one of two 
houses at the foot of a hill, a little 
west of the pier, and nearly opposite 
an ancient structure on the sea-shore, 
of the nature of which I could never 
learn. It was of heavy stone, and 
nught have been the well of salt-pans 
that had long ceased to exist, and 
looked as if it had been at least three 
centuries old. The business of the 
district seemed to be at Charlestown, 



immediately to the west, for of the 
pier at Limekilns I might say that I 
never saw a vessel near it, except the 
" bones of an old sloop," or some 
such craft, that had been drawn up 
alongside of it as far as it could be 
floated at the highest tide. We spent 
a night of great hilarity in the house 
of a kindly and worthy old man, of 
limited education and capacity, but 
in appearance, manners, and charac- 
ter of a high order. Early next day 
we embarked at Charlestown for 
Newhaven in a little steamtug called 
the Lion — which was painted black, 
white, and green, and "clinker-built" 
— and picked up the rest of the fam- 
ily at the Ferry. Although the wea- 
ther was wt?t, I got a good view of 
what was to be seen on our side of 
St. Margaret's Hope, including the 
guard-ship, the ruins of Rosyth Castle 
and St. Margaret's, and after these, 
of the Ferry and Caroline's Nose, and 
enjoyed the novelty of seeing familiar 
places from a point outside of them. 
After fairly passing the F'erry, and 
getting a good sight of the island of 
Inchgarvie, I cast many a look along 
the coast towards the Lazaretto and 
Inverkeithing. When these became 
indistinct, as we advanced towards 
our new home, I bade them adieu, 
but not for ever. 



APPENDIX. 



WITH reference to the History of 
the Gipsies, I have said in tlie 
Preface, that " it is partly in relation 
to this work that I have prepared these 
Reminiscences, as alluded to in the 
Appendix." 1 sent the book home 
in 1865, with the idea that it would at 
least be treated fairly by the Scotch 
j)ress generally ; but it seems that 
the most part of it declined to notice 
it in any way, while not a single pub- 
lication discussed it with reference 
to the really important aspect of the 
subject — the development of the race 
as Its blood became mixed with na- 
tive, and its members took their 
places, more or less, in the ranks of 
settled life, in common with the other 
inhabitants. Indeed there seems to 
have been an aversion even to touch 
the work, or tlic subject of it, in any 
way, were I to judgp by the very 
favourable notice of it in the Edin- 
burgh Weekly Herald, in which, after 
much api)arent hesitation or " swith- 
ering," it began thus : — " This, let us 
say it at once," 1 can only conjec- 
ture in regard to the reason for this, 
for I am not in a jiosition to make a 
specific charge against anyone for 
what I cannot but consider a dere- 
liction of duty. A book of such a 
nature, originating as this one did, 
on being returned to Scotland, was 
entitled to be received there with the 
greatest courtesy and candour ; for 
such is not a thing of every-day oc- 
currence, that can be passed over as 
a matter of indifference. I admit 
that the popular feeling against tiie 



: very name of Gipsy is such that it 
is with the utmost difficulty, or barely 
! ])ossible, attention can be arrested 
i for almost anything good or sensible 
I in regard to it. But that was no 
I reason why the subject, as treated in 
[ tiiis book, should have been j^ro- 
I scribed, in the face of the evidence 
furnished in relation to it. 

To intelligent and disinterested 
people it should appear intuitively 
and instinctively, that the hard feel- 
ing on the i)art of the world at large 
against the Gii)sy race results in the 
following positions : — 

1st. Our knowing so little of the 
Gipsies in general, and absolutely 
nothing of them when, by dropping 
their original habits, and keeping 
' silent on the subject, they "cease to 
be Gipsies" in popular estimation. 

2d. Separation in their feelings, 
private associations, and marriages 
from the community at large ; and a 
corresponding perpetuation of their 
existence as Gipsies or members of 
the Gipsy tribe. 

3d. A natural feeling of antipathy, 
whether active or passive, on the part 
of the (}ii)sies towards the rest of the 
population. 

4th. The moral impossibility of 
the race, as a rule, marrying with 
and " auialgamating and becoming 
lost " among the natives, when they 
have never been allowed by them 
even to " open their mouths " as 
(iipsies. 

5th. That the Gipsy element, whe- 
ther [)ure in regard to blood (of the 



APPENDIX. 



78 



existence of which there is great 
doubt) or mixed, or even common 
blood " gipsified," will also naturally 
marry with the Gipsy element, and 
thereby perpetuate itself, as a tribe, 
or a community in the midst of an- 
other, by a law of nature, as much as 
that by which other races or families 
of men are preserved distinct from 
others. 

6th. That habits or character, call- 
ing or creed, do not enter into the 
question of a person being a member 
of a race springing from a tent, that 
entered Scotland not later than 1506, 
and England in the time of Henry 
VIII., and that has a knowledge or 
belief of its existence all over the 
world. 

7th. That no one should object'to 
a person claiming to be, and being 
in fact, a member of this race, and 
priding himself in it, in the face of 
the ferocity of prejudice against it, 
while he, on his part, claims the priv- 
ilege of being a member of a partic- 
ular native family, or of an associa- 
tion that is in any way separated 
from the rest of the population : see- 
ing that the first is such pre-eminently 
by a law of nature and social pres- 
sure, and not by choice ; and the 
second mainly by family records, 
while as a member of an association 
he is such entirely by choice. 

With these remarks, I ask, What 
were the objections to the History of 
the Gipsies 1 It referred to a people 
living in Scotland, and was a purely 
Scotch question, in which every " pa- 
triot" was supposed to be interested. 
Did anyone know that what was con- 
tained in the work was not true ? If 
he did, then it was his duty to have 
exposed it. If he knew or believed 
that it was true, it was also his duty 
to have admitted it, and done justice 
to it. If he did not know whether it 
was true or not, he should have had 
it investigated and discussed, and 
admitted if true, or rejected if false. 
If he had asked himself what reason 
he had for objecting to what was 
published as truth, he would have 



found it difficult to frame an intelli- 
gible answer to the question. He 
could not have referred to a much 
better authority than himself; and 
he could hardly have said (whatever 
he might have/*?//) that he objected 
to what was given as facts merely 
because he " chose to do so." 

In The Scottish Churches and the 
Gipsies I said that " the social eman- 
cipation of the Gipsies is in reality a 
turning-point in history " (p. 24). 
But in treating the question the first 
thing to be done is to investigate 
and understand it, and intelligibly 
realize the fact that the race is not 
confined to the few that go about, 
somewhat in the more primitive con- 
dition of it. 

Here there is no room for preju- 
dices, preconceived opinions or pre- 
cedents, or any other motives bear- 
ing on the investigation of truth, 
whatever may have been the conven- 
tional light in which it may have been 
looked at heretofore. What becomes 
of the Gipsies as they (or the repre- 
sentatives of the blood) disapi)ear 
from view, is simply a subject of in- 
vestigation, in which common sense 
and fair i)lay should be shown. And 
yet, instead of confining the inquiry 
exclusively to the race itself, people 
are very apt to " go off at a tangent " 
in regard to some other one ; for- 
getting that the Jewish and Gipsy 
elements of society are the only ap- 
parent exceptions to the rule of ab- 
sorption of foreign blood in the Brit- 
ish population, as I have illustrated 
at great length, in the Disquisition on 
the Gipsies, in regard to the descend- 
ants of people from other parts of 
Europe becoming British subjects by 
" mere birth and rearing on the soil." 
But although they thus become " Brit- 
ish," that is not the whole of the 
question. Eor even when two peo- 
ple from different towns in Scotland 
have children born to them and reared 
in another town in Scotland, the issue 
have the feelings of being natives of 
that town, as much as those who.se 
ancestors lived in it " for time out 



APPENDIX. 



of mind," but retain a sense of be- 
longing to a particular family or con- 
nection, whatever the quarter to which 
they may trace it. And if we admit 
that, cannot we easily realize, in a 
much greater degree, the same of a 
Gipsy family, which is of such a re- 
cent addition to the Scotch popula- 
tion, when it has not only never been 
acknowledged, but has been legally 
and socially i^roscribed, so tliat they 
have carefully and rigidly kept a 
knowledge of it to themselves, as if 
they had had to " skulk through life 
like thieves, conspirators or assas- 
sins, afraid of being apprehended by 
all they meet with, in the event of 
these coming to learn all about them, 
however good their characters may 
be ? " — Contributions, etc., p. 202. 

So far from the Gii)sies (whatever 
the occasional exceptions) getting 
" mixed and lost " among the na- 
tives, a certain part of the native 
blood has got " mixed and lost " 
among them ; having had the effect 
of greatly adding to their number, 
modifying their appearance, and fa- 
cilitating their disappearance, to the 
eye, among the rest of the population. 
Under any circumstances it should 
not be maintained, without investi- 
gation and proof, that the Gipsy ele- 
ment has been " lost," merely be- 
cause it relieves the public of the 
trouble and responsibility of discharg- 
ing its duty in regard to the race, in 
the various stages of its development 
after dropping, for the most part, the 
outward peculiarities of the original 
representatives of it. As illustrative 
of what I have said, I give the fol- 
lowing from the Spectator, of so re- 
cent a date as the 22d October, 
1881 :— 

" If Gipsies could be induced to set- 
tle in England, as they have been in 
Scotland, where roamers are now very 
few, they would have to work, and 
would soon be absorbed in the sur- 
rounding population." 

The English language is surely ca- 
pable of defining n)ore accurately the 
destiny of the Gipsy element in soci- 



79 

ety, as it settles and divests itself of 
what is outwardly characteristic of it 
in its primitive condition, than to say 
that it thereby becomes " absorbed 
in the surrounding population." I 
could hardly have thought that a 
journal of the standing of the Specta- 
tor could have used such language, 
after all that I had written on the 
subject and submitted to it, unless it 
appears that this " absorption " the- 
ory is so absolutely conventional that 
no one must call it in question, how- 
ever much it may be demonstrated 
to have no foundation in fact. It 
must be obvious to anyone that even 
an ordinary native does not get " ab- 
sorbed " in the i)opulation of London 
by taking up his residence in it ; al- 
though it might be said, in a general 
way, that he gets " lost " in it, that 
is, he loses his self-inii)ortance, and 
makes it a difficult matter to find 
him. All the influences bearing on 
the destiny of the Gipsies — those that 
originate within themselves and those 
that press upon them frorn without — , 
should surely lead to a conclusion 
different from the one in vogue. We 
have had elaborate treatises on all 
kinds of subjects, including cats and 
insects, and migin have them on the 
mechanism of butterflies' wings — all 
more or less interesting, in conn^.ion 
with whatever society directs its at- 
tention to ; and yet it seems difiicult 
to get a common-sense theory adopt- 
ed, and the facts received, in regard 
to a people that appeared in England 
so recently as the time of Henry 
VIII., particularly in reference to the 
principles of its existence and destiny, 
as it absorbs the native blood, and 
contemplates all outside of the circle 
of its sympathy, which embraces a 
relatively-large number of people in 
the British Isles. 

It was with the object of directing 
attention to the History of the Gip- 
sies, and to my addition to the sub- 
ject of it, that I lately sent by mail a 
great many copies of a pamphlet, en- 
titled The English Universities and 
John Biinyan^ to the press in Great 



8o 



APPENDIX. 



Britain and Ireland, the universities, 
English great high schools, and the 
bishops and deans. Shortly after 
that I distributed in the same way 
four hundred copies of a publication 
entitled The Scottish Churches and 
the Gipsies, which contained the pre- 
ceding one and some other matter 
relating to the Gipsies and the Jews. 
Of these I sent a copy to each of the 
presbytery clerks of the three Pres- 
byterian Churches in Scotland, the 
British and Irish universities, the En- 
glish great high schools, and the 
bishops and deans, and one of the 
canons, " and for the perusal by 
courtesy of the other canons." I 
adopted this course, to bring the 
subject before the university men of 
England, for the reasons given in 
the pamphlet specially addressed to 
them ; and yet I find the Saturday 
Review, on the occasion of a meet- 
ing of the Archaeological Institute at 
Bedford, writing, on the 17th Sep- 
tember, 1S81, as follows: — 

" Mr. Brown showed that, so far 
from Bunyan being of Gipsy descent, 
as an ingenious American writer has 
endeavoured to prove, the name Bunyan, 
in one of its many forms, had been al- 
ready known in Bedfordshire for full 
seven centuries." 

1 had an article, published in Notes 
and Queries, of the 27th March, 1875, 
and reprinted in Contributions, etc., 
in 1S75, and in 77ie Scottish Churches 
and the Gipsies, in 188 r, showing 
very fully the unreasonableness of 
maintaining that John Bunyan could 
not have been a Gipsy because the 
name Bunyan (variously speltj w^as 
in existence in England before the 
Cripsies arrived there. In that arti- 
cle I wrote as follows : — 

" The tradition among all the British 
Gipsies is that their British names were 
originally assumed from those of people 
of influence, among whom the tribe 
settled, as they scattered over the coun- 
try, and had districts assigned to them, 
under chieftains, with a king over all, 
and tokens or passes to keep each in 
his district, or from infringing on the 
rights of other families. All that is 



fully explained in S/mson's History of 
the Gipsies (pp. 116, 117, 205 and 218), 
where will also be found (p. 206) the 
fancy the tribe have always had for 
terming themselves ' braziers,' and hav- 
ing the word put on their tombstones." 
{Con., p. 185). And that "John Bun- 
yan could not possibly have been a 
Gipsy, for the reason that others of the 
British race were of the same name ! 
and, as a corollary, that no one bearing 
a British name can, under any circum- 
stances, be a Gipsy ! " (p. 184). 

Let us consider this subject as one 
of law between two ])arties ; one 
clamorously calling on the judge and 
jury to give him i)ossession of an es- 
tate on the strength of his name^ 
without regard to his pedigree, antl 
absolutely refusing to allow the real 
evidence to be laid before the court, 
in regard to the rightful heir. Of liie 
two writers (the Rev. John Brown, 
of Bunyan Meeting, and one in the 
Sunday Magazine), who put lorth the 
illusion that the name settles the 
question of Hunyan not having been 
a Gipsy, I wrote in the article al- 
luded to, thus : — 

" The two gentlemen mentioned seem 
to know very little, if anything, of the 
subject, and should have exhausted 
i every source of information, and looked 
I at every side of the question, before so 
dogmatically asserting that they ' do 
1 away with the supposition of those who 
I think that John 13unyan may have had 
i Gipsy blood in his veins ' ; that ' the 
! idea of Bunyan being of Gipsy race, is 
totally discountenanced ' ; and that the 
long existence of the name in the coun- 
ty, ' effectually disposes of the supposi- 
tion that the Bunyans were Gipsies ' " 
(p. 184). 

The real evidence in regard to 

Bunyan' s pedigree and nationality is 

to be found in what he told us of 

himself, in Grace Abounding, as fol- 

1 lows : — 

! " For my descent, it was, as is "well 
! known to many, of a low and inconsid- 
j erable generation, my father's house 

being of that rank that is meanest and 
\ most despised of all the families in the 

land." — " Another thought came into 
! my mind, and that was, whether we 



APPENDIX. 



8l 



[his family and relations] were of the 
Israelites or no ; for tinding in the 
Scriptures that they were once the pe- 
culiar people of God, thought I, if I 
were one of this race [how significant 
is the expression !] my soul must needs 
be happy. Now, again, I found within 
me a great longing to be resolved about 
this question, but could not tell how I 
should. At last I asked my father of 
it, who told me. No, we [his father in- 
cluded] were not,"* 

I have not been able to see Mr. 
Brown's book (although I wrote for 
it), and cannot therefore say whether 
he attempted to give an explanation 
of Banyan's account of himself, in 
regard to what he was and zvas not, 
or entirely ignored it. Having raised 
the question about his pedigree or 
nationality, he should have " ex- 
hausted every source of informa- 
tion " before even attempting to de- 
cide it ; but he seems to have wil- 
fully disregarded everything bearing 
on the subject. In that respect 1 
have said that 

" The name of Bunyan having been 
borne by native families would not, un- 
der any circumstances, even make it 
probable that John Bunyan was not a 
Gipsy, for there is a great variety of na- 
tive names among the race. Had he 
belonged to the native race, he could 
have said that he was, in all probability, 
of a ' fine old Saxon family in reduced 
circumstances, related to a baronet and 
many respectable families'" (p. 185), 
or of one that entered England with 
William the Conqueror ! 



* Bunyan adds : — " But, notwithstand- 
ing the meanness and inconsiderableness 
of my parents, it pleased God to put it into 
their hearts to put me to school, to learn 
both to read and write ; the which I 
also attained, according to the rate of 
other poor men's children." — He does 
not say, " according to the rate of poor 
men's children," but of ''other poor men's 
children " : a form of expression always 
used by the Gipsies when speaking of 
themselves, as distinguished from others. 
The language of Bunyan, in speaking of 
his family, was in harmony with that of 
the population at large ; but he, doubt- 
less, had the feelings peculiar to all the 
tribe, in reference to their origin and 
race. — Disquisition, p. 511. 



Even in regard to solid English 
farmers of to-day, no one would eveii 
think of saying that a tinker (what- 
ever his pedigree) was necessarily, 
or under any circumstances, a bro- 
ther or a cousin of them, merely on 
account of the similarity of the sur- 
name, and his frequenting or living 
in their neighbourhood, or having 
been born in it. And no more rea- 
son would there be for saying the 
same in 1628, when Bunyan was 
born. Between 1506, when the Gip- 
sies arrived in Great Britain, and 
1628, I have said that " there had 
doubtless been six generations of the 
race born in the land "; so that there 
had been ample time for it, in its 
mixture of blood, to have settled and 
advanced so far as it did to the birth 
of the immortal dreamer.* 

The question at issue is really not 



* At the meeting at Bedford alluded 
to, Mr. Brown is reported as "having 
said : — 

' ' The Bunyans of Elstow — where they 
were living as early as 1603 — appear to 
have been the poor retainers of a family 
other branches of which were substantial 
yeomen in the county quite three centu- 
ries ago." The expression " poor retain- 
ers of a family" would imply that John 
Bunyan's family were a broken-down 
branch of one of the English aristocracy, 
titled or untitled ; whereas, as we have 
seen, Bunyan himself said that his "fa- 
ther's house," in point of " rank," was 
of " the meanest and most despised of 
all the families in the land," and that 
they were not yews. 

Mr. Brown says (and in this respect 
he is apparently correct) that the father 
and grandfather of John Bunyan were 
called Thomas ; and that the former was 

baptized at Elstow Church on the 

February, 1603, and married on the 23d 
May, 1627, to his second wife, Margaret 
Bentley, the mother of John Bunyan, 
who was baptized at Elstow on the 30th 
November, 1628. There are doubtless 
other records and other information 
bearing on the name Bunyan, which Mr. 
Brown has withheld from the world. 
For example, is nothing said of the call- 
ings and residences of the fathers of Thom- 
as Bunyan and Margaret Bentley in the 
entry of the marriage ? 

The Saturday Review further said that 
" even Dean Merivale had to devote 
several paragraphs of his address to the 



82 



APPENDIX. 



one of evidence, but of an unfortu- 
nate feeling of caste, and the aver- 
sion tliat many have to change their 
opinions, particularly in regard to 
those alluded to in the preface, who 
are not given to research or original 
thought, and have not '• the mental 
ilexibility that enables others to look 
back and forward, and throw them- 
selves into positions besides those 
they iiad been long and carefully 
trained to fill " ; saying nothing of 
those who, " 'caring for none of these 
things,' are for the most part en- 
grossed in their callings, and the 
amenities connected with their posi- 
tions in life." The subject is one of 
vital importance and interest, al- 
though society, from whatever cause, 
seems to be indisposed to entertain it. 
In Contributions to Natural His- 
tory, etc., I wrote as follows : — 

" Nor could it be almost imagined 
that, in a constitutional country, in a 
time of peace, with the courts in full 
operation, any question that is actiona- 
ble should be denied even a hearing by 
a competent court, on the plea of fa- 
vouring the defendant .... or to 
gratify popular prejudices against a suit 

local hero," speaking of him as almost 
" the patron saint, the pride and glory of 
the town, the famous John Bunyan " ; 
and yet he did not acknowledge him, but 
maintained, or allowed it to be said, in 
spite of evidence, that in regard to his 
race he was what he was not. Long be- 
fore the meeting I sent the Dean a copy 
of the pamphlets entitled The English 
Universities and yohn Bunyan and The 
Scottish Churches and the Gipsies. The 
Saturday Review, as we have seen, indi- 
rectly acknowledged the copy of the 
former, v/hich was sent to it. 

The whole trouble or mystery in re- 
gard to Bunyan is solved by the simple 
idea of a Gipsy family settling in the 
neighbourhood of native families of influ- 
ence, whose surname they assumed, and 
making Elstow their headquarters or 
residence, as was the uniform custom of 
the tribe all over Great Britain. This 
■circumstance makes it a difficult matter, 
in some instances, to distinguish, by the 
Christian and surnames in county parish 
registers, " w^hich was which," so far 
back as the early part of the seventeenth 
■century. 



that is legal and moral in its nature. 
The same may be said of the laws and 
courts of criticism ; for if they are in a 
sound state they will at once entertain, 
discuss and settle any and every ques- 
tion suitable to the journal before which 
it is brought. It is unquestionably with- 
in their sphere to entertain dcjuurrcrs, 
and see that they are respected, to the 
extent at least that no one can be al- 
lowed to make assertions, and asser- 
tions only, alter they have been repeat- 
edly denied, with proofs of denial, or 
arguments showing them to be untena- 
ble, or highly improbable. They should 
also see that no denial or assertion is 
permitted unless it is accompanied by 
evidence, or an argument in its favour " 
(p. 204). 

" It is a law in literature, indeed it is 
common sense, that if nothing can be 
said in favour of one of two hypotheses, 
and everything in favour of the other, 
the latter must be accepted as the 
truth ; and this vye have in the one 
that Bunyan was a Gipsy. All that is 
wanting to change the hypothesis into 
a fact would be Bunyan 's verbal ac- 
knowledgment, which the legal and so- 
cial proscription of the race and name 
would prevent him making, and which 
strengthens the Gipsy hypothesis as 
such ; so that if we have not \i\s formal 
confession, we have his itiferential ad- 
mission, as circumstantial evidence, 
which is better than assertion either 
way, when a man's estate, character, or 
life is at stake " (p. 202). 

As to John Bunyan not having 
been a Gipsy, but an ordinary native 
of England, there is not a particle of 
evidence to show it ; for which rea- 
son it should never be maintained 
by sensible and self-respecting men. 
On the other hand, the proof in fa- 
vour of his having been a member of 
the Gipsy tribe is complete, for it 
was not necessary that he should 
have used the word in the face of the 
legal and social responsibility attach- 
ing to it ; the latter of which is ap- 
parently as great to-day as it was in 
Bunyan' s time. In the Disquisition 
on the Gipsies I said that "John 
Bunyan has told us as much of his 
history as he dared to do" (p. 516) ; 
and that " in mentioning that much 
of himself which he did, Bunyan 



APPENDIX. 



doubtless imagined tlKit the world 
understood, or would have under- 
stood, what he meant, and would, 
sooner or later, acknowledge the race 
to which he belonged" (p. 517). 
And in regard to matters of fact 
generally, I have said, that " if it is 
wrong to believe that to be a truth 
which has never been investigated, 
it becomes culpable to enunciate it 
as such " (C<?«., p. 204). 

By receiving John Bunyan as a 
Gipsy, I said in Contributions., etc., 
that 

" Settling this question in the affirm- 
ative would resemble a decision in a 
supreme court of justice in a case that 
is representative of many others ; and 
could not fail to have an immense in- 
fluence on the raising up of the Gipsy 
tribe, to which Bunyan belonged " (p. 
203). 

whether it applied to the more ])rim- 
itive members of the race or to those 
differing in no outtoard respect from 
the rest of the population. 

In regard to this subject, what I 
wrote in Contributions, etc., in 1878, 
is equally applicable to 1882 : — 

" It would also be strange to have it 
said that, in the year 1878, the British 
press, religious or secular, would not 
tolerate the idea that John Bunyan was 
a Gipsy even to appear in its columns ; 
and that people frowned upon or be- 
came fired with indignation at the bare 
mention of it, while they wondered that, 
if it were so, Bunyan should not have 
told us plainly of the fact, when it was 
odious to the rest of the population, and 
death by law for being a Gipsy, and ' fel- 
ony without benefit of clergy ' for as- 
sociating with the race, or even being 
found in its company " (p. 203). 

What I have said of the Spectator 
and the Saturday Revieuf, detracts 
somewhat from the following passage 
in regard to a part of the English 
press : — 

" Still, in England, there is that sense 
of dignity and honourable dealing among 
high-class, high-toned journals, that if 
they do not entertain or do justice to 
the book (or rather to the subjects dis- 
cussed in it), they will not abuse it. And, 



83 

besides that, there is a strong conserva- 
tive feeling peculiar to most of them 
that impels them to be careful in regard 
to what they introduce to their readers ; 
which is a great drawback to anything 
novel or original, whatever its truth or 
attraction, being given to the world 
through their pages " (p. 205).* 

This feeling of conservative con- 
ventionalism has been characteris- 
tic of man in all ages, and under 
almost all circumstances ; and has 
frequently strewn the ground leading 
to the advance of knowledge with 
every hateful passion. Convention- 
alism, in some form, is an essential 
element in society, or rather consti- 
tutes it, however it may change ; and 



* In what I have published I seem to 
have incurred the ill-will of the Scotsman. 
It spoke of the " pretentious absurdity " 
of the title of the History of the Gipsies, a 
book of 575 closely printed pages ; and 
said that it was "worse than calling a 
school an academy to take a number of 
loose notes upon the Gipsies of Scotland, 
to add to them a few looser notes upon 
Gipsies in general, and then to entitle 
the volume a history of that remarkable 
people." — In its critique on Cottnbutioiis 
to Natural History, etc., copied at page 206 
in the second edition of it, it said : — " The 
puzzle is, why he should suppose that his 
views .... are of the smallest impor- 
tance to any human being except himself." 
Its notice of The Scottish Churches and 
the Gipsies, on the 22d December, iSSi, 
read as follows : — " All that can be posi- 
tively asserted about the strange oUa- 
podrida which Mr. James Simson has put 
together under the title, The Scottish 
Churches and the Gipsies, is that it con- 
tains a great deal of rambling writing 
about the Gipsies, and next to nothing 
about the Scottish Churches, or their atti- 
tude towards the 'Romany Rye.' Mr. 
Simson is one of those troublesome per- 
sons who think that they know every- 
thing, and nobody else anything, about 
some pet subject ; that anybody who pre- 
sumes to treat that subject without study- 
ing and accepting as gospel what they 
have written upon it, is guilty of a crime 
of the deepest dye ; and that their petty 
literary squabbles are deserving of elab- 
orate record. This book is an embodi- 
ment of Mr. Simson's idiosyncrasies in a 
very pronounced form. No more cruel 
penaky could be inflicted on the author's 
worst literary foe than to be condemned 
to read it through." 



84 APPEXDIX. 



is a great good in itself, i)rovided 
that it does not last too long or go too 
far, and is accompanied by the cour- 
tesy and candour that open the way 
to the entertainment, discussion, and 
reception of truth, whatever it may 
refer to. As regards social inter- 
course, it is indispensable in civil- 
ized communities, and manifests it- 
self more or less among savage and 
barbarous races, especially in rela- 
tion to their religious or supersti- 
tious observances. Among civilized 
l)eople, after many a battle, conven- 
tional beliefs, with little or no real 
investigation, may be said to be the 
mental condition of human nature ; 
for which reason, if one's knowledge 
is limited to what is merely current, 
however much he may have been 
trained in it, or however much he 
may have acquired of it, it may still 
be said that, in the absence of origi- 
nality of mind, he is little more than 
a "commonplace personage," and 
often a " bar in the way " to the de- 
velopment of every form of truth. 

As regards the subject of the 
Gipsy race, what is aimed at is to 
establish that which should have been 
settled in the time of Henry VIII., 
" jjarticularly in reference to the 
l)rinciples of its existence and des- 
tiny, as /'/ absorbs the native blood, 
and contemplates all outside of the 
circle of its sympathy" (p. 79). On 
this subject assertions have been 
made, and may yet be made, with- 
out regard to investigation and proof, 
by people interesting themselves in 
it ; in regard to some of whom, what- 
ever their positions in life, there is 
no evidence of their non-connection 
with the tribe, and of their not play- 
ing on words, or not writing in good 
faith. 

I have spent too much money, and 
have had too much trouble, in con- 
nection with this matter ; and it is 
time, after this and previous appeals 
to those living in Great Britain, that 
it should be taken ofif my hands. Per- 
sonally it has hitherto almost appear- 
ed that one who is absent from his 



native country has no rights in it. 
Britons should have that much good 
sense as to see that if they keep u}) 
their prejudice (the only one they 
have in regard to race) against the 
Gipsies (so far, at least, as the name 
is concerned), they will not acknowl- 
edge themselves, excepting those who 
cannot help it, and who live by being 
such ; and that much love of country 
and humanity as not to allow this 
race, or name, to remain in the po- 
sition it has hitherto done. Moreover, 
they should not permit it to be said 
that any of their battles should be 
fought exclusively by one of them- 
selves (and at his expense), thirty 
years absent, and three thousand 
miles distant from them ; or that they 
shirk responsibilities of any kind. 

I add a few extracts from the Dis- 
quisitioti on the Gipsies (published in 
1865), bearing on the leading fea- 
tures of the race after leaving the 
tent, and conforming, more or less, 
with the ways of the other inhabitants. 

I am afraid that what has been said 
is not sufliciently explanatory to enable 
some people to understand this subject. 
These people know what a Gipsy, in the 
popular sense, means ; they have either 
seen him and observed his general 
mode of life, or had the same described 
to them in books. This idea of a Gipsy 
has been impressed upon their minds 
almost from infancy. But it puzzles 
most people to form any idea of a Gip- 
sy of a higher order ; such a Gipsy, for 
example, as preaches the Gospel, or ar- 
gues the law : that seems, hitherto, to 
have been almost incomprehensible to 
them. They know intuitively what is 
meant by any particular people who oc- 
cupy a territory — any country, tract of 
land, or isle. They also know what is 
meant by the existence of the Jews. 
For the subject is familiar to them from 
infancy ; it is wrapt up in their early 
reading ; it is associated with the knowl- 
edge and practice of their religion, and 
the attendance, on the part of the 
Jews, at a place of worship. They have 
likewise seen and conversed with the 
Jews, or others who have done either 
or both ; or they are acquainted with 
them by the current remarks of the 
world. But a people resembling, in so 



APPENDIX. 85 



many respects, the Jews, without hav- 
ing any territory, or form of creed, pe- 
culiar to itself, or any histor>% or any 
peculiar outward associations or resi- 
dences, or any material difference in ap- 
pearance, character, or occupation, is 
something that the general mind of 
mankind would seem never to have 
dreamt of, or to be almost capable ot 
realizing to itself (p. 447)- 

Take a Gipsy in his original state, and 
we can find nothing really 7////^rtr about 
him He does not consider him- 
self as belonging to the same race as 
the native, and would rather be judged 
by a different standard. The life which 
he leads is not that of the lowest class 
of the country in which he dwells, but 
the primitive, original state of a people 
of great antiquity, proscribed by law 
and society ; himself an enemy of, and 
an enemy to, all around him ; with the 
population so prejudiced against him, 
that attempts to change his condition, 
consistently with his feelings as a man, 
are frequently in vain ; so that, on the 
ground of strict morals, or even admin- 
istrative justice, the man can be said 
to be only half responsible. The sub- 
ject, however, assumes quite a different 
aspect when we consider a Gipsy of ed- 
ucation and refinement, like the worthy 
clergyman mentioned, between whose 
condition and that of his tented ances- 
tor an interval of, perhaps, two or three 
centuries has elapsed. We should then 
put him on the footing of any other race 
having a barbarous origin, and enter- 
tain no prejudice against him on ac- 
count of the race to which he belongs. 
.... I would place such a Gipsy on 
the footing of the Hungarian race; 
with this difference, that the Hunga- 
rians entered Europe in the ninth cent- 
ury, and became a people, occupying a 
territory ; while the Gipsies appeared 
in the fifteenth century, and are now to 
be found, civilized and uncivilized, in al- 
most every comer of the known world 
(p. 414).— That the Gipsies were a bar- 
barous race when they entered Europe, 
in the beginning of the fifteenth cent- 
ury, is just what could have been ex- 
pected of any Asiatic, migratory, tented 
horde, at a time when the inhabitants 
of Europe were little better than barba- 
rous themselves, and many ot them 
absolutely so (p. 465). 

As a wandering, barbarous, tented 



tribe, with habits peculiar to itself, and 
inseparable from its very nature, great 
allowance ought to be made for its 
gradual absorption into settled socie- 
ty.* That could only be the result of 
generations, even if the race had not 
been treated so harshly as it has been, 
or had such a prejudice displayed against 
it. The difficulties which a Gipsy has 
to encounter in leaving the tent are 
great, for he has been bom in that 

state, and been reared in it Then 

there is the prejudice of the world— the 
objection to receive him into any com- 
munity, and his children into any 
school — that commonly prevails, and 
which compels him to steal into settled 
life. It has always been so with the 
Gipsy race. Gipsies brought up in the 
tent have the same difficulties to en- 
counter in leaving it to-day that others 
had centuries ago. But, notwithstand- 
ing all that, they are always keeping 
moving out of the tent, and becoming 
settled and civilized (p. 482). 



It requires no argument to show that 
there is no tribe or nation but finds 
something that leads it to cling to its 
origin and descent, and not despise the 
blood that runs in its own veins, al- 
though it may despise the condition or 
conduct of some of its members. Where 
shall we find an exception to this rule ? 
The Gipsy race is no exception to it. 
Civilize a Gipsy, and you make him a 
civilized Gipsy; educate him, and you 
make him an educated Gipsy; bring 
him up to any profession you like. Chris- 
tianize him as much as you may, and 
he still remains a Gipsy ; because he is 
of the Gipsy race, and all the influences 
of nature and revelation do not affect 
the questions of blood, tribe, and nation- 
ality (p. 412).— The principle of pro- 
gression, the passing through one phase 
of history into another, while the race 
maintains its identity, holds good with 
the Gipsies, as well as with any other 
people (p. 414)-— By bringing up the 
body in the manner done in this work, 
by making a sweep of the whole tribe, the 
responsibility becomes spread over a 
large number of people ; so that, should 



* I have said, "absorption into settled 
society " ; a very different idea from 
"getting lost among the rest of the pop- 
ulation," as is popularly believed, with- 
out investigation or knowledge of the 
subject. 



APPENDIX. 



the Gipsy become by any means known 
personally to the world, he would have 
the satisfaction of knowing that he had 
others to keep him company ; men oc- 
cupying respectable positions in life, 
and respected by the world at large as 
individuals (p. 465). 

In their wild state, they have never 
been charged by anyone with an out- 
ward contempt for religion, whatever 
their inward feelings may have been for 
it ; but, on the contrary, as always hav- 
ing shown an apparent respect for it. 
No one has ever complained of the 
Gipsy scoffing at religion, or even for 
not yielding to its genera! truths ; what 
has been said of him is, that he is, at 
heart, so heedless and volatile in his 
disposition, that everything in regard to 
religion passes in at the one ear and 
goes out at the other As re- 
gards the question of religion, it is very 
fortunate for the Gipsy race that they 
brought no particular one with them ; 
for, objectionable as they have been 
held to be, the feeling towards them 
would have been worse if they had had 
a system of priestcraft and heathen 
idolatr}' among them. But this circum- 
stance greatly worries a respectable 
Gipsy ; he would much rather have it 
said that his ancestors had some sort of 
religion, than that they had none (p. 
477). — It is the weak position which the 
Gipsy race occupies in the world, as it 
enters upon a settled life and engages 
in steady pursuits, that compels it to 
assume an incognito ; for it has nothing 
to appeal to as regards the past ; no 
history, except it be acts of legislation 
passed against the race. In looking 
into a dictionary or a cyclopaedia, the 
Gipsy finds his race described as vaga- 
bonds, always as vagabonds ; and he 
may be said never to have heard a good 
word spoken of it, during the whole of 
his hfe. Hence he and his descendants 
" keep as quiet as pussy," and pass from 
the observation of the world. Besides 
this, there is no prominent feature con- 
nected with his race, to bring it before 
the world, such as there is with the 
Jewish, viz : — history, church or litera- 
ture (p. 480). 

In the descent of a native family, in 
the instance given, the issue follows the 
name of the family. But, with the 
Gipsy race, the thing to be transmitted 
is not merely a question of family, but 



a race distinct from any particular fam- 
ily (p. 451). — When the Gipsies emerge 
from their original condition, they oc- 
cupy as good positions in the world as 
the Jews ; while they have about them 
none of those outward peculiarities of 
the Jews that make them, in a manner, 
offensive to other people. In every sense 
but that of belonging to the Gipsy tribe, 
they are ordinary natives ; for the cir- 
cumstances that have formed the char- 
acters of the ordinary natives have 

formed theirs Indeed one will 

naturally look for certain superior points 
of character in a man who has fairly 
emerged from a wild and barbarous 
state, which he will not be apt to find 
in another who has fallen from a higher 
position in the scale of nations (p. 500). 
— For this reason, it must be said of 
the race, that whenever it shakes itself 
clear of objectionable habits, and fol- 
lows any kind of ordinary industry, the 
cause of every prejudice against it is 
gone, or ought to disappear ; for then, 
as I have already said, the Gipsies be- 
come ordinary citizens, of the Gipsy 
clan (p. 479). — The Gipsy, as he emerges 
from his wild state, makes ample amends 
for his original offensiveness, by hiding 
everything relative to his being a Gipsy 
from his neighbours around him (p. 
483)- 

What are the respectable, well-dis- 
posed Scottish Gipsies but Scotch peo- 
ple, after all ? They are to be met with 
in almost every, if not every, sphere in 
which the ordinary Scot is to be found. 
The only difference between the two is, 
that, however mixed the blood of these 
Gipsies may be, their associations of 
descent and tribe go back to those 
black, mysterious heroes who entered 
Scotland, upwards of three hundred 
and fifty years ago ; and that, with this 
descent, they have the words and signs 
of Gipsies, The possession of all these, 
with the knowledge of the feelings which 
the ordinary natives have for the very 
name of Gipsy, makes the only distinc- 
tion between them and other Scotch- 
men. I do not say that the world 
would have any prejudice against these 
Gipsies, as Gipsies ; still they are mor- 
bidly sensitive that it would have such 
a feeling (p. 437).— As for the other 
part of the race — those whose, habits 
are unexceptionable — it is for us to con- 
vince them that no prejudice is enter- 
tained for them on account of their be- 



APPENDIX. 



87 



ing Gipsies ; but that it would rather 
be pleasing and interesting for us to 
know something of them as Gipsies, 
that is, about their feelings as Gipsies, 
and hear them talk some of this lan- 
guage which they have, or are supposed 
to have (p. 484)-— To an intelligent 
people it must appear utterly ridiculous 
that a prejudice is to be entertained 
against any Scotchman, without know- 
ing who that Scotchman is, merely on 
account of his blood (p. 529). 

In receiving a Gipsy, as a Gipsy, into 
society, there should be no kind of offi- 
cious sympathy shown him, for he is 
too proud to submit to be made the ob- 
ject of it. Should he say that he is a 
Gipsy, the remark ought to be received 
as a mere matter of course, and little 
notice taken of it ; just as if it made no 
difference to the other party whether he 
was a Gipsy or not. A little surprise 
would be allowable ; but anythmg like 
condolence would be out ot the ques- 
tion. And let the Gipsy himself, rather, 
talk upon the subject, than a desire be 
shown to ask him questions, unless his 
remarks should allow them, in a natural 

way, to be put to him Such an 

admission on the part of a Gipsy would 
presumptively prove that he was a real- 
ly candid and upright person ; for few 
Scottish Gipsies, beyond those about 
Yetholm, would make such a confes- 
sion (p. 445).— In approaching one of 
this class we should be careful not to 
express that prejudice for him as a Gip- 
sy which we might have for him as a 
man ; for it is natural enough to feel a 
dislike for many people whom we meet 
with, and which, if the people were 
Gipsies, we might insensibly allow to 
fall upon them on account of tribe 
alone ; so difficult is it to shake one's 
self clear of the prejudice of caste to- 
wards the Gipsy name (p. 483).— It is 
no business of mine to ask them, how 
long it is since their ancestors left the 
tent, or, indeed, if they even know when 
that occurred; and still less, if they 
know when any of them ever did any- 
thing that was contrary to law. Still, 
one feels a little irksome in such a Gip- 
sy's company, until the Gipsy question 
has been fairly brought before the 
world, and the point settled, that a 
Gipsy may be a gentleman, and that no 
disparagement is necessarily connected 
with the name, considered in itself. . . . . 
Let the name of Gipsy be as much re- 
spected, in Scotland, as it is now de- 



spised, and the community would stare 
to see the civilized Gipsies make their 
appearance ; they would come buzzing 
out, like bees, emerging even from 
places where a person, not in the se- 
cret, never would have dreamt of (p. 
481).— The fact of these Gipsies being 
received into society, and respected as 
Gipsies (as it is with them at present as 
men), could not fail to have a wonder- 
ful effect upon many of the humble, ig- 
norant, or wild ones. They would per- 
ceive, at once, that the objections which 
the community had to them proceeded, 
not from their being Gipsies, but from 
their habits only (p. 436)- 

Speaking of part of the race who 
live like other people, I have said 
that "one feels a little irksoiiie in 
such a Gipsy's company"; which is 
Illustrated by the following circum- 
stance. A little before the publica- 
tion of the History of the Gipsies, 
I accidentally mentioned my inten- 
tion to a Scotchman, living in New 
York, with whom I dealt for articles 
of personal use, when he dropped a 
remark that led me instantly to dis- 
continue the subject, and try him the 
next time I called on him. I then 
entered fully into it, as indirectly ap- 
plicable to himself, when he brought 
his hand down on his counter with 
an oath, and said, " I am one myself, 
for ours is a Gipsy family." The only 
remark I made in reply was, that 
" there are plenty of them." This 
man looked like an ordinary Scotch- 
man, but was far above the average 
of his class, and much respected, and 
worthy of respect. The next time 
we met, his eyes did not catch mine, 
nor mine his, and we never again al- 
luded to the Gipsies in any way. As 
a means of giving an idea of what is 
perhaps too abstract for some people 
easily to understand, his confession 
might be used as a catch-phrase, to 
illustrate a Gipsy of a certain kind— 
" I am one myself, for ours is a Gipsy 
family"; that is, one of this eastern 
race that arrived so recently in Scot- 
land, while following a tented life, 
and whose descendants, owing to a 
mixture of native blood, are now to 
be found of all colours. 



^K REMIiN ISCENCES 

\ OK 



CHILDHOOD AT INVERxKEITHING, 



LIFE AT A LAZARETTO. 



BY 

JAMES SIArSON, 

Editor of 

"SIM son's history UK THE GIPSIES," 

and Author of 

contributions to natural history anu papers on other subjects' 
"charles waterton " ; "the english universities and john 
bunyan"; and "the Scottish churches and the gipsies." 



' O ! is all forgot ? 

All school-days' friendship, childhood innocence ? " — Siiaicspeare. 



NEW YORK: JAMES MILLER. 

EDINBURGH: MACLACHLAN cS: STEWART. 

LONDON : BAILLIERE, TYNDALL & CO. 

1S82. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



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